STORRS - Jason Candle isn’t interested in making himself the center of the picture, at least not if he can help it.
That much came through Monday when UConn’s new head coach was asked the standard questions that come with a season about to begin: how he handles an opener, what success looks like in year one, whether he has any game-day rituals. Candle laughed a little, looked down from the podium and made his point plain.
“Again, a game day is not about me,” Candle said Monday. “This is about me staying the hell out of the way and letting these guys do what they love to do. However I can support them, get them to do this at a very high level, that’s why you do this, that’s why you put the time and effort into forging a career in this industry.”
That kind of answer fits the profile of a coach who spent 10 years at Toledo, where he went 81-44, and now arrives at UConn with a very different tone than the one that preceded him. The Huskies will open Saturday against Lafayette at Rentschler Field, and while the season opener is only days away, UConn still has not announced a starting quarterback.
Candle’s personality already seems to be landing with players. Sophomore defensive back Saxton Suchanic said the coach’s style shows up in the way he carries himself and the way he wants the program to operate.
“That’s absolutely coach Candle’s character, it’s never about him,” Suchanic said. “He’s trying to instill into this program. That’s something you’ll always see from him, unselfishness, that’s one of the things I really respect about Coach Candle.”
Defensive lineman Avery Dunn, who began his career at Michigan State and then played for Candle at Toledo, described a coach who can look calm from the outside but changes fast once the work starts.
“(In front) of the cameras I’m sure he’s very laid back,” Dunn said. “But once he gets to the football field, that fire definitely lights up and he gets a lot more fired up.
At the end of the day, Coach Candle says, ‘we win the games, not the coaches,’ and you see that every day. He challenges us as much as he can, but we have to go out and make the plays and execute the play calls.”
There’s a warmth attached to Candle’s exit from Toledo that says plenty about how he was viewed there. As UConn people travel between campus and the stadium this week, they may see a billboard on I-84 East that reads: ” THANK YOU.
… Go Huskies. … Jason and Nicole Candle.
10 Years of Great Memories. Always a Rocket.”
That kind of sendoff is not nothing, and it also helps explain why more than two dozen Toledo players followed Candle to Connecticut, some of them without ever seeing the UConn campus, while others stayed through the transition, including Suchanic.
Candle steps into a job that asks for a different kind of presence than the one Jim Mora brought to UConn. Mora arrived with NFL and power-conference experience and the obsessive attention to detail that comes with it.
In a struggling, newly independent FBS program after the 1-11 season in 2021, that was exactly what the Huskies needed. The changes in college athletics also played to Mora’s strengths, and UConn’s turnaround followed, including the nine-win seasons in 2024 and 2025 and Joe Fagnano’s emergence as a sixth- and seventh-year quarterback.
Candle’s approach may fit this moment just as well. With retention and development likely to matter even more if five-in-five and other proposals become NCAA rules or law, his background could be the right answer at the right time.
Still, Candle’s own definition of success begins much closer to the present.
“It starts out by winning our first game,” Candle said. “After that, you figure out what’s going to get it done.
What it looks like in December, my wife asked me the other day if we’re going to go on vacation anywhere. I don’t know when the hell vacation is.
Can we just get to Saturday, play Saturday, before we worry about what a successful year looks like and where we’re going on vacation? There are so many hurdles in today’s college athletics that you have to jump over that you see down the road, and equally as many you don’t see coming.”
In Other News...
UConn Just Put Its Identity In The Hands Of Newcomers
UConns leadership picture for 2026 is taking shape around a group that is still getting acclimated to Storrs. The Huskies announced four captains for the coming season, and the list leans heavily on newcomers, with offensive lineman Ty Chan the only one who has already logged meaningful game experience in a UConn uniform after starting nine games in 2025.
Avery Dunn, KVon Sherman and John Lista round out the group, giving the program a captaincy block built mostly from transfer additions rather than longtime returnees. Sherman came over from Toledo with head coach Jason Candle, while Lista arrived from Penn, and the setup says plenty about how quickly UConn is asking fresh faces to absorb the programs standards and help define what comes next. [Read more 🡒]
UConn Just Caught A Big Break Before Its Michigan Rematch
Michigans roster took a significant hit before its scheduled rematch with UConn on November 6, with the Wolverines already dealing with a changing cast around the program. For a Huskies team preparing for another demanding season and a schedule that does not leave much room to ease in, that matchup was always going to be a useful measuring stick, especially with new departures on UConns side and plenty of unknowns to sort through early.
The latest development only adds another layer to a game that already carried some intrigue. Michigan has been working through roster and coaching turnover, and now the rematch comes with one fewer piece in place, shifting the focus even more toward how both teams settle in by the start of the season. For UConn, it is a small break in a long grind, but not the kind that changes the broader challenge ahead. [Read more 🡒]