Edsall’s steadying influence this season may influence ‘Coach of the Year” voters

EAST HARTFORD - Within a few hours of UConn’s 56-31 win over Syracuse Saturday afternoon, a couple of ESPN commentators were throwing Head Coach Randy Edsall’s cap into the ring for national “Coach of the Year” consideration.

After showing highlights of the Husky’s win, Viking-running-back-turned-analyst Robert Smith applauded Edsall’s tenacity in overcoming adversity.

“It’s just incredible what he’s been able to do and what his team was able to do to become bowl eligible, in overcoming the loss of Howard Jasper, and then back-to-back, [make that] back-to-back-to-back losses to West Virginia, Rutgers and then Cincinnati. Absolutely devastating losses. What this team has been able to do with the help of Randy Edsall has just been phenomenal,” Smith said.

“In all honesty, he really should be considered in Coach-of-the-Year discussions, just because of what he’s been able to lead this team through,” he said.

Smith’s broadcasting sidekick Todd McShay agreed, and pointed out that coaching in college extends beyond the hash marks.

He said Edsall has always been “one of the better coaches in college football, but especially this year, just handling all the situations and issues that have come along for this program this year, it’s been remarkable to see the leadership that he has shown.”

While Edsall would no doubt welcome such an award, the team-first coach would much rather get a bowl invitation now that the Huskies have achieved that magic number of victories to qualify for post-season play, six.

“That’s a great win for us today. It puts us bowl-eligible three years in a row now, and I think that’s just very, very significant for our program,” Edsall said, and give his players credit for perseverance under pressure.

“I’m very proud and very happy for these young men, in terms of how they approached this game today after [the win at Notre Dame] last weekend. They really came to work this week and had a focus and had a mind-set that they wanted to play well and for the most part, we did.”

That “for the most part” no doubt referred to the defensive unit.

Defense needs work

While the win over Syracuse was a crowd-pleaser, especially for fans who love scoring, for a defensive-minded coach like Edsall, having the Orange squeeze out 480 yards from scrimmage (360 passing) is cause for concern.

“Defensively, we didn’t play as well as we would have liked [although] we made some plays when we needed to,” Edsall said.

“We just didn’t execute and I’ll be the first to admit it. It’s something we’re going to have to address,” he said.

“We made too many mistakes on defense,” Edsall said. “Our defense has been sporadic this season.”

Taking advantage of UConn’s defensive lapses was Greg Paulus, the former Duke hoop star playing quarterback for Syracuse with his fifth and final year of eligibility, who connected on 24 of 32 attempts for a pair of touchdowns, albeit many of those completions coming against a secondary playing soft because the Huskies led throughout the game.

Admitting “it wasn’t a great performance defensively,” Edsall was quick to point out that the D did play “good enough to win and that’s the bottom line.

“You’d like to have all three phases of the game playing well each and every game, but sometimes one unit has to pick up another unit and that’s why it’s a team game,” Edsall said.

Team effort

UConn’s 56 points certainly came as a team effort with special teams scoring when Mike Lang dashed 80 yards with a kickoff to make the score 14-3 late in the first quarter and defensive back Dwayne Gratz pulling off a scoop-and-scoot with an errant lateral from the Syracuse 34 with eight seconds left in the game.

The Husky offense did quite well for itself, scoring six times, led by senior tailback Andre Dixon who ripped off a 45-yard run to go with scores from the four and the one. Dixon credited the offensive linemen for their aggressive play.

“Like it’s been the whole year, the offensive line’s been doing a great job and this week they really practiced on making sure we execute our schemes and things that we’ve been wanting to do,” Dixon said. “They just came out and did the job up front and they made holes for us and we had a chance to make plays and we made them.”

Dixon’s running mate, sophomore Jordan Todman, put UConn up 21-10 with a 34-yard run in the second quarter.

And senior wide receiver Marcus Easley, the Stratford Streak - like a fine wine, getting better and better each week - connected with quarterback Zach Frazer for eight yards in the third quarter to up the lead to 35-17.

Then he got past single coverage on a fourth-and-one from the Orange 28 with 47 seconds left in the game to score his second. This marks the first time in his career he scored more than once in a game.

That scoring pass, with less than a minute left to play, apparently led to some choice words from Syracuse Head Coach Doug Marrone, who may have thought the decision to pass in that situation was a case of running-it-up.

Edsall appeared to be genuinely surprised - and somewhat taken aback - at whatever the Syracuse coach said to him as they shook hands after the game. The exchange only took a few seconds, but one could see by Edsall’s quizzical expression that he was surprised by Marrone’s remark and almost appeared to be searching out the Syracuse coach for a follow-up conversation.

By the time he met with media after the game, Marrone was ready to credit Connecticut for a job well done: “We fell behind from the beginning and could never get ahead of it. A lot of credit to the players for battling back and a lot of credit to UConn for making plays when they needed to,” he said.

A good call

Edsall, for his part, did not apologize for the fourth-and-one touchdown pass that made the score 49-31 with less than a minute left in the game, a play called by offensive coordinator Joe Moorhead.

“I think Joe made a real good call in that situation, with them all bunched up on the line. We didn’t want to give them the ball back with only an 11-point lead,” said Edsall, who has seen his team squander late-game leads in four of the five losses this season.

The Huskies host South Florida at 8 p.m. this Saturday (Dec. 5) and the game is scheduled to be televised on ESPN2.

A UConn victory would give the team a 7-5 record and three Big East wins and enhance the chances of getting a decent bowl bid. Not to mention that it would continue to stir talk of Randy Edsall as the nation’s Coach of the Year for 2009.

Posted Nov. 29, 2009