On Monday afternoon it seemed like Brown was off to be Yale's next coach, but by Monday night reports were surfacing that he turned down the job after it was offered to him. Yesterday Desmond Connor reported that the sticking point was in the details of the contract, although it is not clear exactly held the deal up.
What is clear though is that, at least for now, Don Brown is going to be UConn's defensive coordinator next season, and UConn fans should be very happy about that. When Randy Edsall left for Maryland I spent more than a few days reading our Maryland blog Testudo Times, and there was one constant in each and every post, whether it was pro- or anti-Edsall: keep Don Brown. So I was naturally delighted when Paul Pasqualoni started off his career as a Husky by poaching Brown from the Terps.
After a year with him as defensive coordinator, it's not hard to understand why the Maryland fans wanted to keep him. Brown's defense is fun to watch, it's vicious, intense and aggressive, and it gets results -- the Huskies had the 4th best run defense in the country last year. It wasn't perfect -- you could rely on the secondary getting torched for two or three big plays every game (especially after Blidi Wreh-Wilson went down with an injury) -- but it was exciting. Furthermore, Pasqualoni, unlike his predecessor, has placed an actual emphasis on recruiting, so if we get to keep Brown for a few years, we'll be able to see his system run by much better athletes.
I don't think anyone was enthused by the Pasqualoni hire, but I don't think I'm going out on a ledge by saying that Brown's presence was the best thing to come out of it, and I'm very happy he'll be in Storrs for more than one season.