Randy Edsall

Randy Edsall enters the fourth season of his second stint as the UConn head football coach after being with the program for 12 seasons from 1999-2010. He led the program from Division I-AA status in 1999 to an appearance in the Bowl Championship Series and the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl following the 2010 season.

Prior to his return, Edsall spent one season with the NFL's Detroit Lions where he was director of research -- special projects. He was the head football coach of the University of Maryland from 2011-2015.

Edsall was named the 27th Head Football Coach at the University of Connecticut on December 21, 1998.

During his first term in Storrs, the program blossomed from a major college football newcomer to a team that made five bowl appearances in seven years and four consecutive. He has recorded the most wins in program history (80) and coached in the most games (180). In addition to being the winningest coach in school history, Edsall’s coaching record in the school’s first nine FBS seasons (2002-2010) was 65-46. He enters the 2020 season with an overall record of 102-134.

Despite starting the 2010 season with an 0-2 conference mark and 3-4 overall, the Huskies rebounded and finished the year with five consecutive Big East wins to earn the league championship and a spot in a BCS bowl game. UConn’s trip from the FCS (former Division I-AA) to the BCS in 11 seasons was the most rapid in the history of the series. For his efforts and those of the team, he was named the 2010 Big East Coach of the Year.

UConn’s trip to the 2011 Tostitos Fiesta Bowl marked the fourth consecutive bowl trip for the Huskies and the fifth since 2004. The Huskies defeated South Carolina in the 2010 Papajohns.com Bowl by a 20-7 score. Edsall guided the Huskies to a 38-20 win over Buffalo in the 2009 International Bowl, led the team to a victory in the 2004 Motor City Bowl (39-10 over Toledo) and an appearance in the 2007 Meineke Car Care Bowl.

UConn joined the Big East Conference in 2004, finishing just one-win shy of tying for the conference championship. The Huskies went 8-4 in their debut season in the conference and defeated Toledo in the Motor City Bowl to cap a historic season.

The Huskies led the conference in total defense each of their first two years in the league and again in 2008. During their debut season in 2004, UConn led the Big East in both total offense and total defense. During this span, UConn finished in the national top 20 for total offense (2003, 2004) and total defense (2002, 2005, 2008). The Huskies finished an impressive sixth in the country in total defense in 2008.

In addition to the great success on the field, UConn performed admirably in the classroom under Edsall. UConn was recognized by the American Football Coaches Association for its high graduation rate six times, most recently in 2017, during Edsall’s career.

In the October 2009 release of the NCAA Graduation Success Rate, UConn had the highest mark of any Big East team. That season also saw the team post a 951 in the NCAA’s Academic Progress Rate (APR), which placed the Huskies in the top 30 percent in the country. In 2008, UConn had the highest GSR for African-American student-athletes among all state universities that participated in a bowl game following the 2008 season.

In 2007, UConn was one of just six schools to play in a bowl game and also post a GSR over 80-percent for both its Caucasian and African-American student-athletes.

In 2003, UConn was the only public I-A school to graduate at least 90 percent of its football players and in 2005, UConn was one of only eight schools to both graduate 70 percent and win a bowl game.

After winning the last four games of the 2002 season, including a benchmark victory against Iowa State in the regular-season finale, UConn moved into Rentschler Field and enjoyed the nation’s largest attendance increase during the 2003 season.

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 Nov. 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. The Big East Champion 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.

Edsall brought 19 years of previous coaching experience to the Husky program, including 15 seasons on the collegiate level and three in the NFL. Edsall joined the Huskies after completing the 1998 season as the defensive coordinator at Georgia Tech, where he helped the 14th-ranked Yellow Jackets complete a 9-2 campaign.

Prior to joining the staff at Georgia Tech, Edsall spent three seasons as the secondary coach for the Jacksonville Jaguars of the National Football League. In his three seasons on Tom Coughlin's staff, Edsall was a part of one of the most successful expansion franchises in the history of the NFL. The Jaguars reached the playoffs in 1996 and 1997, including a berth in the AFC Championship Game in 1996.

Edsall began his coaching career in 1980 at his alma mater, Syracuse University. A former quarterback for the Orangemen, Edsall started as a graduate assistant from 1980-1982. In 1983, coach Dick MacPherson named Edsall running backs coach. He coached the running backs for three seasons at Syracuse (1983-84 and 1986) and coached the tight ends in 1985 before making the switch to the defensive side of the ball. He coached the Syracuse defensive backs from 1987-1990 and during that period the Orangemen were ranked amongst the National Division I-A leaders in pass defense.

Edsall was a three-year letterwinner in football, basketball and baseball at Susquehannock High School in Glen Rock, Pa. He was an all-state selection in all three sports in his senior season and has been inducted into the York Area Sports Hall of Fame. He then went on to Syracuse, where he was a member of the football team and earned one varsity letter as a quarterback for the Orangemen. He was a member of the Syracuse squad that captured the 1979 Independence Bowl title under head coach Frank Maloney.

Edsall is a native of Glen Rock, Penn., and earned a bachelor's degree in physical education from Syracuse in 1980 and added a master's degree in health and physical education in 1982 from Syracuse.

He and his wife, Eileen, a former basketball and volleyball letterwinner at Syracuse, have a daughter, Alexi and a son, Corey.

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