Sammis taking Giant step as OC
Before he was allowed to play football, Gordon Sammis was already teaching himself to be a coach.
“In the lower levels, like Pop Warner, there was always a weight limit. and I was a big kid,” Sammis remembered. “The best thing my Dad ever did was, instead of having me play with older kids, he signed me up to play baseball and basketball. But my favorite sport was always football.”
So Sammis, growing up in Flemington, N.J., watched his beloved Giants. “And I would just start drawing up plays that I saw,” he said. “I had this X-men folder with the plays, and I would take it and show it to my buddies who did play football. Itching to be able to play, being able to diagram that stuff — I didn’t even know what I was looking at, probably — but it made me really like the idea of coaching, and strategy.”
We should tell you these were the mid-1990s Giants we are talking about, so those of a certain age who root for Uconn football, the team for which Sammis has been elevated from offensive line coach to offensive coordinator, should hope he has forgotten more about those Dave Brown, Kent Graham, Danny Kanellled offenses that he remembers. But it’s the process that matters; a rookie coordinator, Sammis sees himself as born to do this.
Eventually, Sammis’ athletic ability, to go along with his size, led him to the football field and success at Immaculata High and Virginia, where he played for Coach Al Groh, a strong branch off Bill Parcells’ coaching tree. Perhaps that makes Sammis, a big, beefy, line-oriented Jersey guy like Parcells, a twig or a branch?
“I wouldn’t dare put my name with Parcells,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve earned that, to be part of the Parcells tree. As a Giants fan, he was ‘the man’ for me. The coaches I
learned from made me want to be a coach even more. Not only the strategy, but those relationships. Al Groh was my college head coach and I still go see him every summer, to talk football for a day. Dave Borbely, my offensive line coach, was the first one to call me when he heard the news drop that I got (the coordinator’s job), with little bits of wisdom.”
Sammis coached O-lines or tight ends at Columbia, Lafayette, VMI and Williams & Mary before coming to Uconn with Jim Mora’s staff in 2022. Shortly after Nick Charlton left for a job with the NFL’S Browns in March, Mora called Sammis and offered him the offensive coordinator’s position. All the challenges and opportunities that come with that job are Sammis’ now.
“There’s really three key tenets,” Sammis said. “We want to be explosive, we want to be multiple and we want to be physical. That’s what offense has to be in this day and age, that’s what’s needed to score points and win games. There are a lot of ways you can do it, but the tried and true thing in football, you build everything around the run game, and then it’s our job to be explosive, to have our passing game look like our run formations, look like our different run plays. In my mind, if you’re running the football, people have to have answers. If they put guys in the box, you have to be able to throw the ball over their heads. Different types of play-action, verticals. We need to make the defense defend every blade of grass, so we need to stretch them horizontally as well.”
Sammis’ offense will be showing defenses the same plays with different people, different formations. None of this is revolutionary or talking out of school. These are the basics of good offense; the only secret is identifying players who can execute it, and teaching them to do it.
In his first season at Uconn, Sammis’ offensive line set the tone for the turnaround from one win to six, the Huskies averaging 191 yards rushing per game, and only 1.38 sacks per game, and Christian Haynes, expected to be a high NFL Draft pick, developed under Sammis’ tutelage.
The first order of business for the Huskies, who are completing spring practices with the Fan
Fest, a scrimmage/showcase, Sunday at Morrone Stadium at 12:30, will be to find their quarterback. Joe Fagnano, who won the starting job last summer then got hurt, and Ta’quan Roberson, who played most of the season, are back, with sophomore Tucker Mcdonald and freshman Cole Welliver in the mix.
Last season’s top running backs, Cam Edwards and Victor Rosa, are back, with additions from the transfer portal. The receiving corps has added through the portal, with Skyler Bell (Wisconsin) and TJ Sheffield (Purdue) from Big
Ten schools and freshman Brock Montgomery.
“Offensively, you’re going to see us run the ball with authority,” Sammis said. “Take what the defense gives us in terms of the passing game and we’re going to try to put our guys in a place where we can get our best players the ball and let them go to work. I feel like we’ve definitely improved our team at multiple positions, we’ve added some explosiveness, some guys with ball skills. The progress they’ve made excites me.”
Mora’s staff has been shuffled. Sammis will continue to coach the offensive line, but to replace Charlton, Brad Robbins has been hired to coach the quarterbacks. Matt Brock will be the defensive coordinator.
“(Mora) is very supportive, great at guiding us situationally,” Sammis said. “All his NFL experience and background, having dealt with different situations, whether it’s end of games, end of halves, it’s just an unbelievable amount of knowledge he can really help us with. But also Coach gives you enough leeway to be the coordinator you want to be, and build your side of the ball the way you want within the image he thinks offense should be. He’s been awesome for me, a great resource. I love just bouncing things off him. ‘What gave you trouble when you were a (defensive) coordinator?’ He’s an unbelievable resource to help us get better.”