Towson pines for the inside draw

"What's that? Someone actually wants to hire me? Oh ... right, fire. That makes more sense."

I touched upon this yesterday, but I'm still having trouble understanding it.

UConn offensive coordinator Rob Ambrose is not only being looked at for a head coaching job, some reports (YELLOW!) have him as the favorite to land the head job at Towson.

Now, Ambrose does have some tie-ins to Towson (Md.), an FCS school. He was a wide receiver and quarterback for the Tigers before he graduated in 1993 and then spent eight years there as an assistant.

But Billy Sims went to Oklahoma, and they're not bringing him back to coach. Probably because of the whole psychosis thing.

It's just an FCS school -- a bad one, at that -- but if Ambrose is in fact brought in, it may be one of the worst hires of the last decade.

It's not just that Ambrose is not inventive. No, that would require some semblance of offensive knowledge. But his offense, or as I like to call it, "Flurry of inside handoffs," has been a bottom dweller in each of his three years as offensive coordinator.

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Obviously, the Huskies' rushing offense is quite impressive, but that's what you get when you average 42.25 rushing attempts per game, like UConn did in 2008 (16th most in the country). And I heard this Donald Brown guy was pretty good this year, too.

But the passing game has been dreadful.

You can blame it on the talent, which has been worse than bad. But with their powerful run game, there's no reason the Huskies couldn't at least provide a passable air attack. UConn scored just four touchdowns through the air in '08, tied for second to last in D-IA with New Mexico; Army ranked last with three passing TDs. Shockingly, both the Lobos and Knights will have new head coaches next fall.

But the good thing is the team's 17 interceptions ranked 104th nationally. Which is one better than their passing offense's ranking! Success! Hire this guy now.

Tyler Lorenzen's noodle arm has been well-documented, and his decision-making was, to be kind, poor this year (3 TDs, 8 INTs), but offenses have done a lot more with a lot less.

But Ambrose's misfortunes are a bit shocking. I mean, this is the same Rob Ambrose that, before he came to UConn, was architect of a Catholic University team -- home of the most specific name in colleges worldwide -- that went 3-7 when he was at the helm in 2001. Correction: I just found out that its official title is Catholic University of AMERICA. That clears up a few things.

Now, I'm probably being a little hard on good 'ol Rob. He did have some success as the OC at Towson and broke all kinds of crazy meaningless records in '99. And if you go by his team bio, he was responsible for Dan O. being talented and Lorenzen's lucky 2007 when he threw just six interceptions before realizing he wasn't that good.

So good luck, Towson. He's a doozy!