As an avid Uconn fan, I was excited for the football season to start up. This has been my second year of following the team and going to a good amount of their games along with my father and grandfather. While not my favorite Uconn sport, (I have season tickets for Hockey instead), I still enjoy going to the games.

A big part of my excitement for this year is the return of former coach Randy Edsall who I didn’t have any previous knowledge of but have heard great things about him. When I started going to the games, the head coach was Bob Diaco. Luckily, my father filled me in on the details I didn’t know about Uconn football’s former head coach and the glory days of Uconn Football.

Randy Edsall was the coach of Uconn football coach from 1999-2010. He has lead them to many victories in these years including Many bowls like the Tostitos bowl, The Papa John’s Bowl, and the Motor City Bowl. He along with the team were also able to win two Big East Championships, one in 2007 and one in 2010. After the great year in 2010, Edsall left Uconn to be the coach at the University of Maryland, where he experienced moderate success from 2011-2015. He then went to work for the Detroit Lions as director of football-special projects. Now in 2017, Edsall is back with Uconn as their head coach ready to coach the huskies again.

Now back to August 31^st, 2017, the first game of the season. I noticed very quickly how much bigger the crowd is than most other games. I suspected the return of Edsall combined with the start of the season would draw in a lot of people. Looking in the stands, I could see a multitude of people from old fans to the rowdy student section and the energy felt great. The game itself was fine. We barely won against Holy Cross and we could have played better, but I felt that this year would be a change for Uconn football and Randy Edsall is part of it.