The

UConn Huskies football team The UConn Huskies football team is a college football team that represents the University of Connecticut in the sport of American football. The team competes in NCAA Division I FBS as an Independent. Connecticut first fielded a team in 1896, an ...

has represented the

University of Connecticut The University of Connecticut (UConn) is a public land-grant research university in Storrs, Connecticut, a village in the town of Mansfield. The primary 4,400-acre (17.8 km2) campus is in Storrs, approximately a half hour's drive from Hart ...

National Collegiate Athletic Association The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...

(NCAA)

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

since the team's founding in 1896. The program has had 30

head coach A head coach, senior coach or manager is a professional at training and developing athletes. They typically hold a more public profile and are paid more than other coaches. In some sports, the head coach is instead called the "manager", as in assoc ...

es, including one interim coach and an early period where the team had no head coach. As of 2021, the current coach is Jim Mora. The nickname "

Huskies Husky is a general term for a dog used in the polar regions, primarily and specifically for work as sled dogs. It refers to a traditional northern type, notable for its cold-weather tolerance and overall hardiness. Modern racing huskies that mai ...

" was adopted following a student poll in '' The Connecticut Campus'' in 1934 after the school's name changed from Connecticut Agricultural College to Connecticut State College in 1933; before then, the teams were referred to as the Aggies. Although the school's abbreviated nickname "UConn" and the Canadian

Yukon Yukon (; ; formerly called Yukon Territory and also referred to as the Yukon) is the smallest and westernmost of Canada's three territories. It also is the second-least populated province or territory in Canada, with a population of 43,964 as ...

territory—where huskies are commonly used in

dogsledding A dog sled or dog sleigh is a sled pulled by one or more sled dogs used to travel over ice and through snow. Numerous types of sleds are used, depending on their function. They can be used for dog sled racing. Traditionally in Greenland and the e ...

—are

homophone A homophone () is a word that is pronounced the same (to varying extent) as another word but differs in meaning. A ''homophone'' may also differ in spelling. The two words may be spelled the same, for example ''rose'' (flower) and ''rose'' (p ...

s, the "Huskies" nickname predates the school's 1939 name change to the University of Connecticut. The first recorded use of "UConn" (as "U-Conn", both separately and with "Huskies") was later in 1939. The Huskies have played 1,083 games during the program's 118 seasons through 2016. UConn joined the fledgling

Yankee Conference The Yankee Conference was a collegiate sports conference in the eastern United States. From 1947 to 1976, it sponsored competition in many sports, but was a football-only league from mid-1976 until its dissolution in 1996. It is essentially the an ...

in 1947, which merged with and became the

Atlantic 10 The Atlantic 10 Conference (A-10) is a collegiate athletic conference whose schools compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's (NCAA) Division I. The A-10's member schools are located in states mostly on the United States Eastern ...

football conference in 1997. Seven coaches— J. Orlean Christian, Robert Ingalls,

John Toner John L. Toner (May 4, 1923 – September 23, 2014) was an American football player, coach, and college athletics administrator. He served as the head football coach at the University of Connecticut (UConn) from 1966 to 1970 and as the school's ...

Robert Casciola Robert F. Casciola (born c. 1935) is an American former college football coach, National Basketball Association executive, banking executive, and broadcaster. He was the head coach at the University of Connecticut from 1971 to 1972 and at Princ ...

Larry Naviaux Larry L. Naviaux (December 17, 1936 – August 21, 2021) was an American football player and coach. He served as the head football coach at Boston University from 1969 to 1972 and at the University of Connecticut from 1973 to 1976, compiling a car ...

Walt Nadzak Walter Nadzak Jr. (born July 14, 1936) is a former college football coach, college baseball coach, and athletic director. Nadzak's 35-year career took him to four schools, serving as head baseball coach and assistant football coach at Division III ...

, and Tom Jackson—led Connecticut to conference championships prior to the team's transition from

Division I-AA The NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS), formerly known as Division I-AA, is the second-highest level of college football in the United States, after the Football Bowl Subdivision. Sponsored by the National Collegiate Athletic ...

Division I-A The NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), formerly known as Division I-A, is the highest level of college football in the United States. The FBS consists of the largest schools in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). As ...

in 2000, and one coach—

Skip Holtz Louis Leo "Skip" Holtz Jr. (born March 12, 1964) is an American football coach who is the head coach for the Birmingham Stallions of the United States Football League (USFL). Previously, he was the head coach for the Louisiana Tech Bulldogs (201 ...

—led UConn to the Division I-AA playoffs in 1998. Following the transition, Edsall led the Huskies to

Big East Conference The Big East Conference is a collegiate athletic conference that competes in NCAA Division I in ten men's sports and twelve women's sports. Headquartered in New York City, the eleven full-member schools are primarily located in Northeast and M ...

championships in 2007 and 2010. Randy Edsall is Connecticut's all-time leader in games coached (144), coaching wins (74), bowl game appearances (5), and bowl game wins (3).

Bob Diaco Robert Albert Diaco (born February 19, 1973) is an American football coach and a former linebacker who is the defensive line coach for the New Jersey Generals of the United States Football League (USFL). He played college football at the Univers ...

is the only other UConn head coach to lead the team to a bowl game, which was lost. Dave Warner, who led the then-Aggies to a 3–0 record in his only season coached in

1914 This year saw the beginning of what became known as World War I, after Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the Austrian throne was Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, assassinated by Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip. It als ...

, is the all-time leader in winning percentage (1.000); E. S. Mansfield and Leo Hafford, who both lost every game they coached in

1898 Events January–March * January 1 – New York City annexes land from surrounding counties, creating the City of Greater New York as the world's second largest. The city is geographically divided into five boroughs: Manhattan, B ...

and

1911 A notable ongoing event was the Comparison of the Amundsen and Scott Expeditions, race for the South Pole. Events January * January 1 – A decade after federation, the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory ...

, respectively, share the lowest-ever winning percentage (.000). Among coaches that led the team for longer than a single season, T. D. Knowles is the all-time leader in winning percentage (.712), while John F. Donahue has the all-time lowest winning percentage (.125).

Key

Coaches

Notes

References

General * Specific {{NCAA Division I FBS independent football coach navbox *

UConn The University of Connecticut (UConn) is a public land-grant research university in Storrs, Connecticut, a village in the town of Mansfield. The primary 4,400-acre (17.8 km2) campus is in Storrs, approximately a half hour's drive from Ha ...

UConn Huskies football coaches The University of Connecticut (UConn) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Storrs, Connecticut, a village in the town of Mansfield, Connecticut, Mansfield. The primary 4,400-acre (17.8 km2 ...