SINGAPORE– It may have been lost in the shuffle after USC fired Lane Kiffin as its head football coach, but Connecticut has made a long awaited change, firing head coach Paul Pasqualoni Monday after a winless 0-4 start and an embarrassing 41-12 loss to Buffalo..
Athletic director Warde Manuel, a former Michigan player who came to Storrs two years ago from Buffalo, didn’t keep Pasqualoni on contract to lose to teams like Buffalo and Towson State earlier in the season. The end of an a short lived era was inevitable. Pasqualoni finished up with a 10-18 record in just under two and a half years.
“I am making this change in our football coaching staff now as we approach the conference season to see an improved performance from our football program,” Manuel said in a statement.
The American Conference team, which has a buy week before it plays South Floirda, said it will pay Pasqualoni $750,000 to buy out his contract. Offensive coordinator T.J. Weist will take over as interim head coach of the Huskies.
The 48-year-old Weist, who played at Alabama, came to Connecticut in the off season from Cincinnati, where he served as wide receivers coach.
Weist also has coached at his alma mater, Michigan, Southern Illinois, Tulsa and Western Kentucky.
UConn has produced national championship men’s and women’s basketball teams under former coach Jim Calhoun and current coach Geno
Auriemma, but the school needs football to be relevant in its new conference if it wants to build for the future.
Long-time offensive line coach George DeLeone also was fired.
The Connecticut-born Pasqualoni took over a UConn team that was coming off a Big East championship and 2011 BCS Feista Bowl appearance, losing 48-20 to Oklahoma. But after Huskies finished just 5-7 in consecutive years, there was increasing calls from unhappy fans for the firing of the aging, 64-year old coach.
The Huskies started off with that telling loss to FBS Towson, then fall to Maryland and Randy Edsall, the coach whom Pasqualoni replaced. The team seemed to be turning the corner, playing Michigan close in a 24-21 loss but th Buffalo loss was unforgivable, especially for Manuel, who had been the AD at Buffalo before accepting the UConn job in 2012.
“I am disappointed in the record of our team thus far, but I am confident that our coaching staff and student-athletes will continue to work hard to improve and that will be reflected on the field of play as we start our American Athletic Conference season,” he said Monday.
Pasqualoni was in his 43rd year as a coach, but this was his first head coaching job since being fired by Syracuse in 2004, after leading the Orange to 107 wins in 14 seasons. But he dd not have a game changer like quarterback Donovan McNabb in Storrs the way he did in the ‘Cuse.
