"I mean he already quit," Williams said. "It wouldn't make any sense if he's no longer the coach."
So Edsall is an architect with his priorities in place.
"Let me give you a little dose of honesty," said former UConn defensive lineman Rob Lunn. "That's what they're saying to you guys. I guarantee behind closed doors they're saying they want to beat this guy. Both teams are saying how bad they want this one. I wish I could bring you into one of coach [Hank] Hughes' meetings. You'd have a lifetime of column fodder."
Pasqualoni, who coached with Edsall at Syracuse for four years under Dick MacPherson, praised Edsall as a very good coach, detailed and exacting. He praised the culture of strong academics he inherited at UConn, too. He said he never asked about Edsall's departure. He said he never read about it. He said in this day and age coaches move all the time. And then he treated everything else like a time bomb.
"Some great coach somewhere said, 'The more distracted you are the less competitive you become,'" Pasqualoni said.
Now Lunn is a fascinating guy. A colorful and candid blogger, broadcast analyst and social media butterfly, he's not one to hold back. Even he says focus is paramount.
"If you are harboring vengeance in your heart, that's all well and good for a movie script or your column," Lunn said. "But at the end of the day it comes down to can you limit the big play on defense. Can you create the big play on offense? You still have to put your hand in the dirt and execute the game plan. Yes, there's a feeling of abandonment, and, yes, there's motivation. But if you get caught up in the hype of how we want to get back at him, you'll take yourself out of the game."
Lunn, who played at UConn from 2004 to 2008, has always been a huge Edsall supporter. He was stung by Edsall's departure.
"I was at the Fiesta Bowl, it was a tough pill to swallow, not telling your guys what was going on," Lunn said. "Time and more life experience tells me you've got to take care of yourself and family. Personally, I have nothing but respect for the guy. I'm also a UConn alumni, not a Randy Esdall alumni. I love the school."
Ironically, when Lunn came out of high school in upstate New York, Pasqualoni was coach at Syracuse and the program he had followed since he was a kid waffled in his recruitment. He loved to beat Syracuse.
"Do I not like [Pasqualoni] as the coach at UConn because I hated him as coach at Syracuse?" Lunn said. "Absolutely not."
Hate vs. Focus. Resentment vs. Execution. There's a thin line there and an athlete has to be careful not to cross it once the game starts.
"If we're going to sit here and go on about Coach Edsall and yada, yada, yada, we're thinking about the wrong thing," Wreh-Wilson said. "We need to get our season back on track."
Randy Edsall, architect, deserter, would agree. Only he'd put it in much more wooden terms.
"This is just another game for us and for me," Edsall said. "Game 3 on our schedule."
