Candle says he has surrounded himself with "winners" at UConn.
Jason Candle disbursed the obligatory thank yous on Monday when he met the media for the first time as head football coach at UConn.
One of his biggest expression of appreciation went to recently departed coach Jim Mora, with Candle grateful for the shape in which his predecessor and his coaching staff left the program.
“Oftentimes you get a chance to take over these opportunities and, you know, a lot of places there's coaches doing the same thing I'm doing today and the program that they're walking into is not very good,” Candle said. “This is not the case here. The team has done wonders in the last 24 months, and now it's a challenge of how you can take that and take it to the next step.
“I'm looking forward to putting a staff together that can be able to highlight and enhance what those men have been able to do.”
First meeting
Candle, 46, and athletic director David Benedict discussed the initial meeting and brief courtship that brought Candle to Connecticut from Toledo, where he compiled an 81-44 record over 10 seasons and became the winningest coach in program history.
The two met Nov. 29 as Benedict traveled to watch Toledo’s regular-season finale against Central Michigan, days after Mora departed for his new job at Colorado State.
Candle's hiring at UConn was announced Saturday.
“What I saw was everything that I expected. A well-organized sideline, coaches, student-athletes competing, a physical team, a team that's capable of scoring and shutting people down,” Benedict said. “And that's exactly what I saw. I quickly learned after having some conversations that we were aligned in our thinking. We had the same type of goals that we will have for our football program moving forward.”
Those goals range from graduation rates for the athletes to continuing the transformation that Mora began, turning around a team that won 10 total games in the five seasons before his arrival to nine games in 2024 and ’25 – with a 10th win possible in the Fenway Bowl against Army on Dec. 27.
Candle’s Toledo team finished 8-4 this season and is headed to the Boca Raton Bowl against Louisville.
He led the Rockets to eight bowl games and never had a sub-.500 season.
Candle will be working in the same building with championship-winning coaches Geno Auriemma and Dan Hurley, both of whom had a role in his recruitment. Benedict said Auriemma, based on the strength of the recruiting classes of his women’s basketball teams was “the ultimate closer.”
To Candle, his new colleagues are an inspiration.
“The success of those men and what they've been able to accomplish is not only a model for your university, but it's a pillar of what success looks like across college athletics,” Candle said. “It’s not often you get a chance to go to work at a place where you get stimulated and you get motivated by the success of others around you.”
"I want to surround myself with winners, and I think I found a perfect place to do that," he continued. "So I'm really excited to to be a part of that."
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