Less than 24 hours following UConn’s disheartening loss to FCS Holy Cross, which dropped the team to 0-2, head coach Randy Edsall announced Sunday that he’ll be retiring at the conclusion of the 2021 season.
Edsall, 63, coached 16 total seasons in Storrs, from 1999-2010 and again since 2017 — not including the 2020 season canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. He left UConn to take the head coaching position at Maryland following the 2010 season, and replaced Bob Diaco ahead of the 2017 season. He has a 76-95 record with the Huskies, 98-129 overall as a college head coach.
“After 17 years of service at the University of Connecticut as its head football coach, I’ve decided to retire at the end of the season,” Edsall said in a statement. “Back in 2017 I made a commitment to the university, but felt it was better to make this announcement now rather than the end of the year, to allow the university ample time to prepare for the future of the football program. All my focus and attention for the rest of the season will be to prepare our players and coaches to go out and win as many games as possible.”
Edsall declined to address his retirement at a previously scheduled media availability on Sunday afternoon, though he did reaffirm his commitment to the program through the end of the season.
“I stand by what I said in my statement, and that’s all I’m going to say and talk about,” Edsall told reporters. “The last part of that statement, I’ve done it for 17 years, and I’ve done it for 40 years as a coach — I will bust my ass to the best of my ability until the end of the season, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do. I’ve done it that way all my life, and it isn’t going to change.”
The university signed Edsall to a two-year contract extension worth $1.256 million in March.
Edsall joined UConn at the turn of the century after 20 years of coaching at Syracuse, Boston College, Georgia Tech and the Jacksonville Jaguars. He led UConn to five bowl games from 2004-2010, with wins in the Motor City Bowl (2004), International Bowl (2008) and the PapaJohns.com Bowl (2009).
His second tenure in Storrs has not been as fruitful. The Huskies have gone 6-32 since his return, and fielded one of the worst defenses in FBS history in 2018. UConn, which left the American Athletic Conference in 2019 and is in its first season as an independent program, has lost 26 of those games by double digits.
UConn athletic director David Benedict said that it was Edsall’s decision to retire, and that he is “constantly evaluating” the football program. A national search will be conducted to hire a replacement, the university said.
“When Randy Edsall arrived in Storrs in 1999, he was tasked with leading a Division I-AA program through the challenging transition to Division I-A,” Benedict said. “By 2011 his student-athletes were graduating at an admirable rate, the program was producing an abundant amount of NFL talent, and UConn had made an appearance in the Fiesta Bowl.”
Shawn McFarland can be reached at smcfarland@courant.com.