Edsall Departure Opens Door For UConn To Improve

Randy Edsall is a very good football coach. He helped lead the University of Connecticut from the Yankee Conference into the Big East and this past season Edsall and the Huskies won the conference championship and earned a spot in the prestigious Fiesta Bowl. A few hours after UConn lost 48-20 in the Fiesta Bowl to Oklahoma, Edsall interviewed for the same job at Maryland and decided to leave Storrs, Connecticut to take over the Terps. UConn fans are not happy that their head coach deserted them just hours after the program played in its biggest game but Edsall's defection does create an opportunity for the program to improve itself and put itself in a position to consistently compete for the Big East title. This is not a plea for Connecticut's athletic director Jeffrey Hathaway to offer Jim Harbaugh a Godfather offer to leave Stanford for the Nutmeg State or for UConn to become the landing spot for Rich Rodriguez after his crashing fall at Michigan. No, the man that UConn must turn to is currently in New England. The next coach for the Huskies should be Sean McDonnell of the University of New Hampshire. McDonnell has turned UNH into a powerhouse in the FCS Division and since 2004 the Wildcats are 57-20, have won the Colonial Athletic Association conference title four times and have appeared in the NCAA Tournament six times. In 2005, McDonnell took home the Eddie Robinson National Coach of the Year award. He knows how to win in New England and is the perfect candidate for UConn to build on the success of Edsall and improve their program. If there is any doubt that a coach can jump from a small FCS school like New Hampshire and lead a nationally respected FBS program only need to tune into Monday's BCS National Championship Game. The University of Oregon is led by McDonnell's former offensive coordinator at UNH, Chip Kelly. McDonnell is a great coach who has built a great program at UNH and if given the chance, he would build UConn into a better program than the one Edsall is leaving behind. Hathaway needs to convince McDonnell to leave his alma mater (UNH '78) and take the Huskies from a program on the rise to a team that will contend for the Big East annually and will be able to beat the Oklahoma's of the world, not just line up against them on New Year's Day. Sean McDonnell is one of the premiere FCS coaches in the nation and UConn would be making a terrific decision by hiring him to be their next football coach.