Randy Edsall Steps Down as UConn HC After Saying He Would Retire at End of Season

UConn head football coach Randy Edsall is stepping down effective immediately as the team's head coach. 

Edsall had previously announced on Sunday that the 2021 season would be his final one with the program after 17 years in Storrs.

But UConn opened the season with a 45-0 loss at Fresno State and is 0-2 overall following Saturday's 38-28 defeat to Holy Cross.  

Edsall, 63, spent the first 11 years (1980-90) of his coaching career holding various roles at Syracuse before stints as a defensive backs coach at Boston College (1991-93) and the NFL's Jacksonville Jaguars (1994-97). In 1998, he served as Georgia Tech's defensive coordinator and defensive backs coach.  

He became UConn's head coach in 1999, when the school was still in the FCS (it joined the FBS in 2002), spending 12 years with the program and leading the Huskies to five bowl games, including a berth in the Fiesta Bowl in the 2010 season. 

But he left the school in 2011 to become the head coach at Maryland, where he spent five seasons, leading the Terrapins to a 22-34 record and two bowl appearances. He was fired midseason in October 2015. 

UConn rehired him in 2017, though the school has struggled in his second tenure, going 6-32. UConn has an 80-102 mark overall with Edsall at the helm. 

His departure was looming, given the team's blowout loss versus Fresno State and a shocking 38-28 upset at the hands of Holy Cross, an FCS school, on Saturday. 

"I'm disappointed, because I thought we would be able to do a little bit more than what we're doing," Edsall told reporters after the loss. "It's up to me to figure it out and get ourselves to play better. But the one thing I know is you've got to be able to run the ball and create new lines of scrimmage and to stop the run, you've got to do those things, too."

Instead, UConn will turn to defensive coordinator Lou Spanos as it tries to turn its season around.