UConn plumbs the Big East archives to bring back Paul Pasqualoni

As of Wednesday morning, UConn appeared set to hire outgoing Miami offensive coordinator Mark Whipple, as soon as it worked some last minute – not so fast, my friend! The Huskies turned the tables on premature reports today by resurrecting another ghost of Big East past: Paul Pasqualoni, longtime head coach at Syracuse, is the choice to succeed Maryland-bound Randy Edsall in Storrs, per the Boston Globe and the Connecticut Post. He was en route to Connecticut this afternoon to meet the welcome wagon and make it official at a Friday press conference.

If Pasqualoni's tenure at Syracuse looks better today than it did in 2004, when was fired after a blowout loss to Georgia Tech sealed the Orangemen's third straight non-winning season, he has Greg Robinson to thank. In the wake of a four-year nose-dive to the bottom of the Big East under "Gerg," Pasqualoni's record at 'Cuse – seven top-25 finishes, three major bowl bids, at least a share of four Big East championships and a .644 winning percentage over 14 seasons – looks like the days of wine and roses. He's spent the last six seasons as an assistant with the Dallas Cowboys and Miami Dolphins, biding his time for a job that, frankly, is kind of perfect for him.

Pasqualoni is an old hand in Connecticut, and the Northeast in general: He grew up in the Nutmeg State, lettered as a walk-on under a young Joe Paterno at Penn State and spent the first 15 years of his career as a coach and teacher in Connecticut, first at his old high school and then at a pair of small colleges, Southern Connecticut State and Western Connecticut. At Syracuse, he recruited future stars Dwight Freeney, Tebucky Jones and Kyle McIntosh out of Connecticut high schools. You can't build a Division I team by recruiting Connecticut, but it can't hurt to have a coach who can actually convince the odd native who does grow up there to stay at home.

Of course, the surprise Big East title and subsequent Fiesta Bowl bid in 2010 will have more to do with keeping the Huskies on the map after the departure of the coach who essentially built the UConn program from the ground up over the last decade than a 61-year-old coach (62 in August) whose last winning season on a college sideline came when current recruits were in elementary school. These kids may not even remember when Pasqualoni's most famous product, Donovan McNabb, was actually good. This coaching thing, though, it's basically like riding a bike, right?

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Matt Hinton is on Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.

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