Who calls the UConn plays?
It’s Giufre’s offense, with Edsall and QB coach heavily involved
Frank Giufre is the UConn football team’s offensive coordinator. And that title, as it should, means he will receive much of the blame or much of the credit for how the Huskies operate with the ball and how that production fits into what becomes of this season.
That’s the way it is. It is
Giufre’s offense, his responsibility, even if he’s ostensibly just one piece in a rare by-committee puzzle.
“It’s our offense,” he said. “It’s the University of Connecticut’s offense. It’s what Coach [Randy Edsall] wants to do. It’s what we in the offensive room feel that we can do best.”
That explanation, not exactly what I expected, does make sense in that Giufre is learning on the job and should be allowed to. Formerly the offensive line coach, he was promoted in the wake of John Dunn’s unexpected February departure. His mind and heart for most of his 19 years as a coach have been on one area of the field, one group of players, one unit’s basic function — and the jump from the trenches into this all-encompassing role is complicated.
Still, he’s the guy … the latest guy in UConn’s ridiculous lineage at the position. Giufre is the Huskies’ eighth offensive coordinator in the past eight seasons and if he returns in 2020 and completes another year he’ll be the first to keep the job that long
profile. It’s more demanding, can be more rewarding. It’s why even the casual UConn fan now knows his name — he can no longer be relatively anonymous, like a lineman — and even how to pronounce it. I had to learn, having butchered his name during an offseason podcast.
Frank JOFF-Ree.
“That was like the first question I got when I was hired here,” Giufre said, recalling a conversation with UConn sports information director Patrick McKenna. “Pat texted me and said, ‘How do you pronounce it?’ I was like, ‘OK, have you ever seen Game of Thrones? You know the blondehaired king that was a [ jerk]?”
Got that? It’s important. So was this, I thought: Who is actually calling the UConn plays? “A myriad of guys,” Giufre said. Here is how it is playing out, as best as I can understand: At the beginning of each series, Edsall states a general goal — go runheavy, for instance, or try to exploit a certain area of the defense or a situation. From there, others choose from a small package of plays available. Usually, it’s Edsall, Giufre and quarterbacks coach Mike Moyseenko most heavily involved in the discussion and Giufre or Moyseenko typically call in the play to the quarterback. It is often signals or signs from the sideline.
So there’s no one designated play-caller, is my point.
“It keeps everybody locked in,” Giufre said. “Coach will say what he wants, and we take it from there.”
In a 2,700-word, behind-thescenes piece out of spring camp in 2018, I mentioned and quoted Giufre just once, something about him craving nachos during a lighthearted moment in the darkness of an offensive staff meeting. It probably led him to wonder whether I took him seriously and today I’d like to say that we all should.
Giufre is hoot. I’ll say that, too. He’s got a great sense of humor, a mix of self-deprecation and sarcasm, all kinds of one-liners and a bunch of grins and grimaces that underscore what an interesting breed football coaches are.
He’s also very experienced and accomplished and dead serious on the job. He’s smart, detailed, likable and has learned from coaches we all know. Before coming to UConn, Giufre spent six years as an offensive quality control coach for the Colts, where he worked under Chuck Pagano and Bruce Arians. He was on the staff at Maine for five years prior to that and also spent time at Sacred Heart and Miami. A native of upstate New York, Giufre played college football at Syracuse.
Now here he is, unexpectedly, at or near the top of UConn’s efforts to score points. The offense was basic in an opening victory over Wagner and loosened up a bit, in a good way, in a loss to Illinois. Jack Zergiotis, a true freshman with true swagger, played with abandon and several receivers, Ardell Brown and Cam Ross in particular, looked like viable weapons on the outside. Speaking of learning names … “Before with the receivers, it was just like, “Hey, what’s up there, 82?’ ” Giufre said. “Now you’ve got to know their names and what their responsibilities are on route concepts, where before I was only locked in to the protection [as the line coach]. Now it’s protection, protection adjustments and what’s going on outside. When you’re an offensive line coach you worry about your grass and that’s it. Being a coordinator, it’s about how the pieces mix. It’s like playing Tetris.”
Zergiotis was the third-string quarterback for the opener and was named the starter over Mike Beaudry for Illinois. Steven Krajewski was the back-up both times.
“The whole race was tight leading up to the first game,” Giufre said. “After the Wagner game, Mike gets banged up and it’s, ‘Who gives you the best chance to go out and succeed?’ Jack had a really good week in practice and does a good job throwing the football. He’s young but he’ll learn. He’s got that gunslinger mentality. He plays free. He plays fast.”
Edsall, who spent the week in Pennsylvania following the death of his mother, was set to return to the team Sunday. He has already named Zergiotis as the starter moving forward, starting with next week’s game at Indiana.
What will the offense look to do? Add more, or perfect what its already running?
“I think you try to do simple [things] better,” Giufre said. “You try to get a lot of reps being simplistic, in my opinion. Now that and two bucks will get you a USA Today but …”
His opinion counts. With each week, he’ll have a better understanding of his capabilities and maybe try new things, much like the offense as a whole. Two months from now, we’re going to be talking about what Giufre’s offense did or didn’t do because his thumbprint will be more visible and his title tells us he’s the one to credit or blame.
“Every day I just tell myself I need to be one percent better than the day before,” he said.