As you have no doubt heard by now, Jim Mora recently left UConn in the dead of night to go to famed football powerhouse Colorado State, leaving David Benedict with a choice: should I hire someone good or someone shitty?
As a UConn athletics fan, my recommendation is this: hire someone good. And for David’s benefit, I have compiled what we all need now more than ever: a list of guys. Are these guys good? I hope so! Some of them may not be attainable. But how would I know? I’m not an athletics administrator. I’m just a guy with an opinion and a blog willing to publish my thoughts. And you, you’re a weird freak actually reading what I wrote, so don’t you get all judgy on me. And if David Benedict is still reading the blog: Dave, check these guys out. Don’t listen to Marc.
So without further ado, my list of guys, roughly in order of how much I want them. As coach, I mean.
1. Bob Chesney, James Madison Head Coach
This one probably doesn’t even need to be on the list, since reporting at the moment is that Chesney is being strongly considered for open jobs at Penn State and UCLA. You may be aware that those schools have more money and a league to play football in (a good one, the Big Ten, not like the fucking American or some shit), so unless they and several other schools pass on Chesney, this isn’t happening. But for posterity’s sake, I’m putting his name here.
Chesney first came to the attention of UConn fans when his Holy Cross team embarrassed us several years ago by defeating a UConn team “coached” by the late* Randy Edsall. Several of you told me at the time that you wanted to hire him, and I, foolishly, dismissed you. Since then, Chesney has made the move to FBS James Madison, where he is currently somehow threatening to take them to the CFP. If Chesney is actually available, he’s a home run hire, and he should definitely be our first choice. Also, let’s not kid ourselves. We love a hot coach.
*he’s dead to me
2. Charles Huff, Southern Miss Head Coach
Huff has more or less the exact resume I’m looking for, with five years as an FBS head coach, going 39-25 with a Sun Belt title in 2024 before moving on to Southern Miss this season. The Golden Eagles, despite having gone 1-11 last season and losing every game they played to an FBS opponent (sound familiar?), staged an impressive turnaround in Huff’s first season at the helm, going 7-5 this year to earn bowl eligibility, and nearly making it to the Sun Belt championship game.
Huff, a Maryland native, has some attractive east coast connections as well, having coached at Maryland and Penn State, along with Vanderbilt, Mississippi State, and Alabama, where he was Nick Saban’s Associate Head Coach for the 2020 National Champions. He also spent a season as an assistant positional coach for the Bills. So assuming that Chesney is off the table, Huff’s experience as a successful FBS head coach, with assistant experience at several power conference programs, including ones in or near the northeast, not to mention some level (though limited) of NFL connections, would make him a very attractive candidate.
Huff’s salary is $950k a year at Southern Miss, with an assistant coach salary pool of $1.75 million and a support staff of $600,000, all of which should be very easy for UConn to beat by a huge margin.
3. Jason Candle, Toledo Head Coach
Candle just finished his 10th full season as the Rockets head coach, sporting a tidy 81-44 record in that stretch. He has a pair of MAC titles and twice won MAC coach of the year. His teams also play very appealing football, averaging 30 or more points per game in 6 of the last 7 years. As a head coach, his record is very strong, and I’d have to feel pretty comfortable if he is who we ended up hiring. However, he’s spent his entire career coaching in Ohio, and has no meaningful connections to the northeast. Additionally, he’s never worked for a program above the MAC level. In fact, the only FBS program where he has ever coached is Toledo. That does present some limited concerns about how transferrable his success will be, but more concerning would be whether he would leave Toledo for the UConn job. He made $1.15 million this year, so UConn would have to be willing to pay up to get him, and might find themselves in a minor bidding war with a Toledo program that would like to keep their coach.
4. Al Golden, Cincinnati Bengals Defensive Coordinator
Golden’s name was batted around during the last time the UConn job opened up, with one enterprising blogger inventing rumors that he’d been offered the job at one point. Golden turned around a disastrous Temple program in the late 2000s, bringing enough success to the Owls that he got hired away by Miami, which of course ended in his being fired 5 years later for not winning the Super Bowl. Since then, he’s added a Broyles Award as the nation’s top assistant while working as defensive coordinator for Notre Dame, followed with him heading back to the NFL to over see the Bengals defense.
Golden’s career includes coaching stops at Virginia, Boston College, Penn State, and Notre Dame, as well as in the NFL with Detroit and Cincinnati. He had good success at Temple, and was actually 7 games over .500 at Miami when he was fired. Due to pretty hideous defensive personnel, the Bengals are last in the NFL in defense, and Golden might see this as an opportune moment to get out of dodge and to a more stable situation at UConn.
5. Ricky Rahne, Old Dominion Head Coach
Rahne is only 29-33 at ODU, but they’ve shown significant improvement, going 9-3 this year and finishing second in the Sun Belt East. Rahne, a former quarterback at Cornell, would be a solid hire, and his years as an assistant at Kansas State, Vanderbilt, and Penn State (including as offensive coordinator under James Franklin for two years) give him some additional credibility with power programs. Rahne’s salary at ODU is just over $850k, so UConn certainly has the financial power to snag him.
6. Tony Reno, Yale Head Coach
Reno’s name has come up quite a bit in recent days, as his 13 seasons at Yale have seen him compile an 83-48 record, with several Ivy League titles, and now add onto that his recent comeback win over Youngstown State in the FCS Playoffs. Another point in Reno’s favor: his son is the star quarterback at Yale, and perhaps might join him if he made the move to UConn, a huge bonus given that Joe Fagnano is retiring. Working against Reno is that all of his experience is at the FCS level, though he is a career northeast guy, having grown up and gone to school in Massachusetts before coaching exclusively in Massachusetts and Connecticut, a one-year stint at King’s College in Pennsylvania except. The other concern with Reno is that he might not be interested in leaving Yale. He’s been there for 13 years, and seems to be pretty comfortable.
7. Andrew Aurich, Harvard Head Coach
Despite the obvious similarities given the titles here, Aurich’s candidacy feels very different from Reno’s. He’s moved around quite a bit more, including stints with the Tampa Bay Bucs and a four-year stretch as an assistant coach at Rutgers (after two years earlier in his career on the staff) before getting the job at Harvard. Aurich is much younger than Reno, and with only two years at Harvard, would seem far less entrenched, and therefore far more attainable, than Reno. Harvard got blown out in its first-round playoff loss, but Aurich is still 17-4 in two years, an impressive record in a short period.
8. Ryan Carty, Delaware Head Coach
Another coach who has already beaten UConn, Carty has faithfully stewarded his alma mater from FCS up to the FBS level this year, where they just finished 6-6, 4-4 in CUSA. Carty’s first three years at Delaware saw them go 26-11 at the FCS level, including two playoff appearances (and second round losses) in the only two seasons they were eligibile for the postseason (due to the transition). Carty also had a good quarterback this year he might be able to bring along with him, but as Nick Minicucci is not technically his child, he’d still have to manage to recruit him here. In either case, Carty’s teams have shown strong offensive capabilities, and he was the FCS coordinator of the year while running the offense for Sam Houston State when they won the FCS national championship in 2020. Carty’s experience at the FCS and now at the FBS levels are encouraging, though limited to smaller programs. The most recent salary info for Carty had him making around $536k in 2023, but even with a recent extension, it’s likely UConn could dwarf whatever number Delaware is paying him at this point.
9. Kevin Cahill, Lehigh Head Coach
Cahill would be among the riskier hires on this list, with no FBS experience and only three years of experience as an FCS head coach. However, in that three years, he took Lehigh from one of the worst programs in FCS (2-9 his first year in 2023) to one of the best (12-0 this year, ranked #3 in the country). This is a staggering turnaround in such a short time. While I’d obviously much prefer someone with a more proven track record, Cahill’s upside makes him an attractive option. According to rumors floating around UConn circles, Cahill may have already reached out to UConn about the job, indicating that he’d be an easy hire to land. I’d push for established FBS coordinators and/or a GM with FBS experience if Cahill were brought in, but either way, we could certainly do worse than this.
10. Corey Hetherman, Miami Defensive Coordinator
Massachusetts native Hetherman is one of the only coaches on this list with no head coaching experience, the rest of his resume is excellent, with a lot of experience at the FBS level and in the northeast, including as the defensive coordinator for one of the best defenses in the country this year at Miami. He’s this far down the list because of the premium most place on head coaching experience, but if we can’t get a proven head coach we really like, Hetherman is a very strong candidate.
11. Joe Moorhead, Akron Head Coach
Ah, Joe. The one who got away. There has been some degree of mutual interest between Moorhead and UConn since he was the offensive coordinator under Randy Edsall when Edsall left for the Maryland job following the Fiesta Bowl. The timing, however, has not worked out, as Moorhead’s stock was usually a bit too high when UConn was looking for a new head coach (excluding when they hired Paul Pasqualoni rather than promote Moorhead following Edsall’s departure). Moorhead, then the offensive coordinator at Oregon, was the guy most UConn fans were hoping for when Edsall’s disastrous second run at UConn ended, but he was waiting out better offers that never came, so we ended up with Mora and he ended up at Akron, where he has gone a dismal 13-35, likely killing his chances of getting the job now. It’s worth noting that Akron is a nightmare of a job where essentially no one ever wins, so it’s entirely possible that Moorhead could come here and succeed. But is he the best choice for a UConn program that is much more attractive than it was four years ago? Probably not.
12. Tim Beck, Vanderbilt Offensive Coordinator
Beck is a long-time, highly experienced coach who spent many years at DII Pittsburg State, where he won a national championship as head coach in 2011, before moving up to the FBS level with TCU in 2021. He oversaw one of the best offenses in the country this year at Vanderbilt. Beck is one of the older names on the list, but he would be a capable hire if UConn is unable to grab a current head coach for the job, and they want someone who has been a head coach, at least at some level.
13. Mike Shanahan, Indiana Offensive Coordinator
In addition to continuing the tradition of having a head coach who shares a name with a much more famous NFL head coach, Shanahan would give UConn a young, up-and-coming coach who is overseeing one of the best offenses in the country at Indiana (alongside former UConn QB Chandler Whitmer), with prior assistant experience at Pittsburgh, James Madison, IUP, and Elon. Shanahan has never been a head coach, but he is likely to be targeted by someone within the next year or so for a head coaching position.
14. Neal Brown, Special Assistant at Texas
There are many options for fired P4 head coaches, including the Kelly twins (Chip and Brian), Billy Napier, Jimbo Fisher, etc. Most of those guys are assholes, so Brown is the one I’ve chosen to include here. The UMass alum has coaching experience at his alma mater, as well as Sacred Heart, Delaware, Troy, Texas Tech, Kentucky, and head coaching stints at Troy (went 35-16) and WVU (went 37-35 before being fired). He wouldn’t be the most exciting hire, but if he could be as successful at UConn as he was at Troy, that would be a huge win.
15. Gordon Sammis, UConn Offensive Coordinator and Interim Head Coach
The easiest move for Benedict would be to just give the job to the guy next to Mora. Sammis has dramatically improved his stock this year, overseeing an offense that scored nearly 37 points per game, putting it in the top-15 in the country, and getting his second Broyles Award nomination. UConn is the only FBS school Sammis has ever worked for, excluding his time as a graduate assistant at Virginia, and he would certainly not be a name that would get many of us excited. However, he would provide continuity with the most successful era in UConn football history since the Big East fell apart, and perhaps might be able to keep the team somewhat intact. Count this as my least exciting option, though.
So, in conclusion, Dave please hire one of these guys or someone cooler and better that I haven’t thought of. Thank you for your consideration in this matter.
