College football coach leaves team a week before the season starts

An assistant college football coach is stepping away from the team just a week before the start of the 2022 season.

UConn opens the 2022 college football season in a few days, but the Huskies will kick things off without defensive coordinator Lou Spanos.

The coach has taken a leave of absence from the football program for personal reasons and will be out an unspecified period of time, the school announced.

No further details for his leaving the team were immediately made available.

Why it matters: Spanos served as the UConn defensive coordinator going back to the 2019 season and prior to that was Jim Mora's defensive play-caller at UCLA in 2012 and 2013.

Mora was named UConn head football coach this offseason.

Spanos previously filled in for Randy Edsall as the Huskies' interim head coach during the 2021 season after Edsall announced he planned to retire, and before a "mutual decision" was revealed by the school to cut ties the next day.

Spanos went 1-9 as the interim head coach.

The 51 year old joined the UConn football staff after a brief stint as defensive analyst at Alabama in the 2018 season.

He also coached defense with three NFL franchises, including the Pittsburgh Steelers, Washington Redskins, and Tennessee Titans from 1995 to 2011.

Who does UConn have left? It's unclear who will step in as UConn's defensive coordinator.

• Defensive backs coach Dalton Hilliard is the single member of the Huskies' defensive staff that has held a coordinator position before: at FCS school UT Martin in 2019.

• Kenny McClendon was the former defensive line coach at Youngstown State and Siriki Diabate coached linebackers at Middle Tennessee State.

• Mora also has experience coaching defense, including with the San Francisco 49ers.

Huskies open in Week 0: UConn has a tough early schedule to start the 2022 football season, opening at Mountain West champion Utah State and plays Michigan and NC State in two consecutive road games in September.

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