Huskies Hire David Corley as New RBs Coach

The Huskies officially announced Monday that former William & Mary assistant David Corley would be the running backs coach, replacing Ernest Jones who resigned last month. Corley will also serve as the Director of Player Engagement, a role Jones also had.

Here is the release from the school:

STORRS, Conn. (March 3, 2014) — David Corley, who has spent the past six seasons on the staff at William & Mary, has been named as an assistant football coach at the University of Connecticut and will serve as the Director of Player Engagement and have position responsibility with the running backs.

Corley joined the William & Mary staff in 2008 and spent the first two seasons as the running backs coach and the next three working with the quarterbacks. He spent 2013 as the wide receivers coach and passing game coordinator.

A 2002 graduate of William & Mary, Corley played professionally in the Canadian Football League with the Hamilton Tiger Cats (2003) and Calgary Stampeders (2006). He also was a member of the Arena Football League’s New York Dragons (2005).

In his two seasons working with the running backs at William & Mary, he groomed tailback Jonathan Grimes into one of the nation’s top players at the FCS level. Grimes set the Tribe’s freshman records for both rushing and all-purpose yards and was named as a honorable mention All-American as a return specialist. Grimes follow-up sophomore campaign moved him into the program’s career top-10 lists in rushing yards and rushing touchdowns in just his second season. He eventually graduated as the most decorated player in Colonial Athletic Association history with 11 all-conference honors.

Jones came under fire after invoking religion as part of his duties.

"We develop [players] socially, intellectually, spiritually, physically," Jones told the Hartford Courant at the time. ... "And we're going to do things in our building, fellowship, non-denominational type things, players, coaches. We're going to make sure they understand that Jesus Christ should be in the center of our huddle, that that's something that is important. If you want to be successful and you want to win, get championships then you better understand that this didn't happen because of you. This happened because of our Lord and Savior. That's going to be something said by Bob Diaco. That's something that's going to be said by Ernest Jones. That's who we are."

This was an issue because UConn is a publicly funded university. Jones' words prompted this response from university president Susan Herbst: "Employees can't appear to endorse or advocate for a particular religion or spiritual philosophy as part of their work or in their interactions with students."

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