Randy Edsall

Randy Douglas Edsall (born August 27, 1958) is a former American football coach, who was the head football coach at the University of Connecticut from 1999 to 2010 and again from 2017 until his abrupt retirement in 2021.

He played quarterback for the Orangemen from 1976 to 1979, with Coughlin as his position coach.

He then coached at Syracuse under Frank Maloney and Dick MacPherson from 1980 to 1990 and was a part of the 1987 team that went 11–0–1, including a tie in the Sugar Bowl.

He then went on to coach at Boston College with Tom Coughlin and was a part of a turnaround at BC. In 1993, they defeated No. 1 ranked Notre Dame in South Bend.

He then followed Coughlin to the Jacksonville Jaguars.

The Jaguars made it to the AFC Championship Game in their second year as a franchise in 1996 and made the playoffs in 1997.

In 1998, he became the defensive coordinator at Georgia Tech and saw his defense improve greatly from the season before, including a co-ACC championship and a Gator Bowl victory over Notre Dame.

Edsall was named the 27th head football coach at the University of Connecticut on December 21, 1998 and led the Huskies from Division I-AA into Division I-A.

UConn was the first school to ever move from the FCS to the Bowl Championship Series as a member of the Big East.

In what has been considered one of the best and fastest building jobs in recent memory, Randy Edsall oversaw a period of unprecedented success at the University of Connecticut.

UConn went from Division I-AA into Division I-A, and in only their first year as a full member of the FBS in 2002, Edsall guided the 2002 team to a 6–6 record in its first year with a full Division I-A complement of 85 scholarships.

UConn ended the 2002 season impressively with four-straight wins to reach the .500 mark, including season-ending road wins at Navy and at bowl-bound Iowa State of the Big 12 Conference led by Seneca Wallace that was ranked as high as 9th in the country that year, 49–37.

The excitement for Edsall and his team continued to swell in 2003 as the Huskies moved into their new home, Rentschler Field, and enjoyed the nation's largest attendance increase with a gain of 21,252 fans per game.

Finishing with a 9–3 record, many national media outlets, including Bristol-based ESPN, proclaimed that UConn should have received a bowl berth, a feat highly uncommon for an independent team.

Also in 2003, UConn was the only public I-A school to graduate at least 90 percent of its football players.

With their membership in the Big East for the 2004 season, another strong campaign by the Huskies resulted in a bowl berth.

UConn went 8–4 against a challenging slate that fall as the program gained its highest ever level of exposure.

Behind one of the best players in Connecticut history in Dan Orlovsky, the Huskies capped their historic season with a resounding 39–10 win over Mid-American Conference champion Toledo in the Motor City Bowl.

That year saw 2 players get drafted, Dan Orlovsky, and Alfred Fincher.

After graduating many impactful seniors after the 2004 season, the Huskies finished the 2005 season 5–6.

The 2005–2006 seasons saw a period of transition for the program.

More of the same happened in the 2006 season as the Huskies finished 4–8.

The 2007 season witnessed a new level of excitement in Storrs as the Huskies earned their first ever national rankings, peaking at No. 13 in the BCS standings on November 5.

UConn became just the second Big East team to ever go 7–0 at home and defeated three teams there which were ranked in the Top 10 at some point during the season.

That year they also beat their first ranked opponent in school history by beating #11 South Florida on October 27, 2007, 22–15.

The Huskies finished that season at 9–4 with a berth in the Meineke Car Care Bowl, earning Edsall New England Division I Coach of the Year accolades.

The 2008 season was also very successful.

After a 5–0 start and a return to the top 25 rankings, the Huskies finished the season at 8–5 and defeated Buffalo in the International Bowl in Toronto, Canada, 38–20.

After a record breaking year, Donald Brown became the first first round draft pick in school history.

The 2009 season saw both great success and great tragedy.

After defeating Louisville on October 17, 2009, Jasper Howard, a cornerback on the team was stabbed to death the next day outside of a school dance at the UConn Student Union.

After this, the Huskies lost 3 games to West Virginia, Rutgers and Cincinnati by a combined 8 points.

After a bye week, Edsall's Huskies won their final three regular season games in 2009 – including a historic double-overtime win over Notre Dame on Nov 21 at Notre Dame Stadium, 33–30.

He also served as the head coach at the University of Maryland from 2011 to 2015 and as director of football research-special projects for the Detroit Lions of the National Football League (NFL) in 2016.

During his first stint at UConn, he oversaw the program's promotion from the NCAA Division I-AA level to Division I-A.

He is the program's all-time leader in wins and games coached.

A native of Glen Rock, Pennsylvania, Edsall attended Susquehannock High School.

He is a protege of former New York Giants head coach Tom Coughlin.

Edsall played for Coughlin at Syracuse University and later coached under him at Syracuse, at Boston College, and with the Jacksonville Jaguars.

Edsall spent the first 14 years of his adult life at Syracuse as a player and coach.