For the first time in 20 years, Sean McDonnell will not be coaching when the University of New Hampshire football team opens its season. The school announced on Monday night that McDonnell, 62, is taking an indefinite leave of absence from the program for health-related reasons. Associate head coach Ricky Santos has been named the interim head coach.
The Wildcats open their season on Sept. 7 at Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass. Santos will be in charge for the game, but the plan is for McDonnell to eventually return to the sidelines.
“Our entire department is aligned in doing everything to support Sean with the intent of getting him back to coaching his program,” UNH director of athletics Marty Scarano said in a statement. “This will be the ultimate team effort; the administration, coaching staff, and, most of all, the student-athletes will give everything we have to support Jenny (McDonnell’s wife) and Sean during this challenge.”
McDonnell was entering the 21st year in what has become a legendary coaching career at his alma mater. He led the Wildcats to 14 straight FCS playoff appearances from 2004-17, he’s the winningest active coach in the Colonial Athletic Association with 98 career conference victories, he’s been named the Eddie Robinson National Coach of the Year twice (2005, 2014), and he’s been selected as the New England Football Writers Coach of the Year five times.
Some fortuitous timing made the line of succession, at least on an interim basis, clear at New Hampshire. Santos, a former UNH player and coach, returned to the school in March as the Wildcats’ associate head coach/quarterbacks coach.
Santos was the quarterback who helped UNH begin its 14-year playoff run. He was a redshirt freshman starter on the 2004 team that started the streak, won the Walter Payton Award as the best offensive player in the Football Championship Subdivision as a junior and still holds most of the school’s passing records. Santos played in the Canadian Football League from 2009-12 before coming back to UNH as a wide receivers coach from 2013-15.
He was the quarterbacks coach at Columbia University from 2016-18, serving under Al Bagnoli, another legendary FCS coach. Bagnoli is the nation’s winningest active college football coach at any level and has won nine Ivy League titles. In 2017, Columbia had its best season in 20 years with quarterback Anders Hill, a Santos pupil, leading the way and setting a school record for completion percentage.
“UNH football is in great hands with Ricky Santos as its interim head coach,” Scarano said. “Ricky will carry on the principles that Coach Mac has instilled in our nationally recognized program to ensure the team maintains its standard of achievement both on and off the field.”