Home Sports High Schools Colleges Eagles Phillies Flyers Sports Betting Subscribe Sign In Subscribe Sign In STORIES MOST RECENT STORIES sports Rocco fired as Delaware football coach business The rebirth of a historic Rehoboth Beach boardwalk hotel clears hurdle High School Delaware high school football quarterfinals scoreboard local Mark your calendars: Delaware's newest Aldi opens this week news This is when balls roll at Wilmington's new $2M duckpin bowling alley High School Delaware high school football playoff roundup: Middletown rolls sports 11 who could be the next University of Delaware head coach news What are your rights under Delaware's use-of-force laws? news Man fatally shot in Wilmington's Hilltop neighborhood news Teen fatally shot Sunday in Wilmington's Hedgeville neighborhood FOR SUBSCRIBERS In the end, Rocco's teams couldn't meet Delaware's great expectations KEVIN TRESOLINI | Delaware News Journal 17 hours ago Show Caption Less than five years after Danny Rocco was hired as University of Delaware football coach in December of 2016, Rocco was fired Monday. Rocco left with a pair of unusual assets for a newly terminated coach. He earned the 2021 spring Colonial Athletic Association Coach of the Year trophy and was eight games over .500, 31-23, as Delaware coach. “Danny has done a lot of wonderful things for our program,” athletic director Chrissi Rawak said. Delaware head coach Danny Rocco greets Vinny Papale at the bench after Papale scored on a long pass in the second quarter of the Hens' … Show more WILLIAM BRETZGER, THE NEWS JOURNAL Many would be correct in saying Rocco deserved better. At many places, that would have been the case. But he didn’t do enough here. Delaware harbors great football expectations and those “just weren’t met,” Rawak said. KEELER COMEBACK?: Former coach heads list of UD candidates Delaware was just 20-16 in CAA games and 1-7 against rivals Villanova and James Madison, a fact Rawak highlighted, under Rocco. Get the Inside the NFC East newsletter in your inbox. Delivery: Thurs Your Email Where and when did it go wrong? Right from the start, with some curious losses, and in several important areas, including recruiting, staffing, execution and personal connections. Rocco inherited a veteran, proven roster from predecessor Dave Brock, though the quarterback position remained a conundrum. Rocco’s first UD team, in 2017, had NCAA playoff potential, and showed that by winning difficult games at Stony Brook and home against Richmond, the latter in overtime. A mid-season quarterback switch, from Joe Walker to J.P. Caruso and Walker’s eventual move to wide receiver, was wise. Delaware coach Danny Rocco (right) and defensive line coach Levern Belin encourage players during their win over New Hampshire on Saturday, Oct. 19, 2019. LOUIS MASON/SPECIAL TO DELAWARE NEWS JOURNAL But the Hens suffered late-season losses to Towson and Villanova, teams that both finished 5-6, which left them nosed out of an FCS playoff spot in a 7-4 finish. Winning some important games but not enough continued in 2018, when Rocco went from Caruso to the unproven Pat Kehoe, which turned out to also be astute. Delaware lost a mistake-filled opener at home against Rhode Island, got back on track with difficult victories against Towson and at Albany, but lost the last two regular-season games against Stony Brook and Villanova. ROCCO FIRED: Months after reaching national semifinals, coach is let go The 7-4 record this time was good enough to get Delaware into the playoffs. But the reward was a trip to James Madison, a 20-6 loss to the Dukes and a pink slip for offensive coordinator Matt Simon. In 2019, Delaware went 5-7 when it took too long to get running back Will Knight involved while he was averaging 7.4 yards per carry and a young defense was the worst in the nation at making tackles in the backfield. Another quarterback switch, this time from Kehoe to Nolan Henderson, again seemed shrewd. View |100 Photos Ranking the University of Delaware's all-time best 100 football players Ranking the University of Delaware's all-time best 100 football players Then came the spring season of 2021, and it appeared everything was well and good again with UD football. The Blue Hens didn’t lose until the FCS semifinals in a 7-1 season that seemed to trumpet a return to national prominence. It was keyed by an altered defensive alignment that kept offenses bottled up and forced takeaways, and a versatile offense featuring the CAA’s most explosive runner in Dejoun Lee and Henderson’s school-record completion percentage. But Delaware couldn’t put together an autumn encore, going 5-6, including losing five of seven after Henderson’s season-ending injury. A six-game stretch in which Delaware scored 20 or fewer points demonstrated ongoing offensive shortcomings. That hadn’t happened since the first six games of 1960. ALL-CAA HAUL: Whitehead, Kroll, Pastula lead 13 Hen choices Rocco, whose coaching background is on defense, was never able to truly solve Delaware’s offensive dilemmas, except during the spring season. In the four fall seasons, Delaware ranked 8th (2017), 10th (2018), 9th (2019) and 11th (2021) in the CAA in total offense. While opposing coaches frequently complimented Delaware’s size up front, its offensive line was never exceptional. Then there's the fact that Delaware, which recruited four scholarship quarterbacks out of high school after Henderson but replaced him with walk-on transfer Zach Gwynn, wasn’t better prepared in Henderson's absence. That's an example of ineffective recruiting that could also be used to describe other position areas. In the end, none of Rocco's Delaware teams won more than seven games. At Delaware, where Tubby Raymond won at least eight in 23 of his 36 seasons, that's not enough. Rawak deserves credit for recognizing and making an effort to rectify that. This was a bold move many administrators wouldn't have the nerve to make, especially considering Rocco still had to be paid, as his contract ran through 2022. Delaware head coach Danny Rocco looks for an interference call against Towson in the third quarter of the Blue Hens' 40-36 win at Delaware Stadium … Show more WILLIAM BRETZGER, THE NEWS JOURNAL There’s no doubt Rocco, 61, was respected and admired by players, and he demanded and earned their attention. The former Penn State and Wake Forest safety and Demon Deacons captain has coached for 38 years, the last 16 as head coach at Liberty, Richmond and Delaware. Rocco has an impressive 121-65 record and his only two losing seasons came in 2019 and this year. “Simply, Danny Rocco was the man for that locker room,” wide receiver Gene Coleman II tweeted Monday. “If you weren’t in it, you cannot speak on it.” Coaching at Delaware also demands embracing the history and tradition, which is what Rocco said brought him here. Indoctrinating one’s self within the local community, engaging with alumni and developing a personal bond with ex-Blue Hens, whose devotion to the program is deep, is a must. Those are areas, some close to the program have suggested, in which Rocco could have done better. It's also why previous ties to the Blue Hens, past offensive success and a more charismatic personality may be characteristics Delaware seeks in a new coach and why it could very likely be former coach K.C. Keeler. Get the best UD football coverage in Delaware. Sign up for Inside UD Football, a weekly newsletter from veteran reporter Kevin Tresolini. Have an idea for a compelling local sports story or is there an issue that needs public scrutiny? Contact Kevin Tresolini at ktresolini@delawareonline.com and follow on Twitter @kevintresolini. Support local journalism by subscribing to delawareonline.com. Kevin Tresolini 17 hours ago Share your feedback to help improve our site! More Stories Rocco fired as Delaware football coach Sports Delaware high school football quarterfinals scoreboard High School Delaware high school football playoff roundup: Middletown rolls High School 11 who could be the next University of Delaware head coach Sports Under Rocco, Blue Hens couldn't meet Delaware's great expectations Sports 17 hours ago Help Terms of Service Your California Privacy Rights/Privacy Policy Privacy Policy Site Map Accessibility Our Ethical Principles Manage Cookies © Copyright Gannett 2021 About Your Privacy Clicking on the (X) in the top right corner retains the default setting of only strictly necessary cookies and "Always Active" purposes as preset by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) of Europe. We and our partners store and/or access information on a device, such as unique IDs in cookies to process personal data. 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