In hindsight, it made sense that Ryan Manalac, UConn’s new defensive coordinator, got into coaching.
He started his playing career as a walk-on at Cincinnati, where he earned a scholarship and was part of a Big East championship defense in 2008 before earning an undrafted free agent contract for a short stint with the Buffalo Bills.
After he was cut, Manalac ventured into the business world for a short time before he realized it wasn’t for him and returned to his roots at Pickerington Central High in Ohio, when a conversation with his former coach, Jay Sherrett, encouraged him to get into coaching.
“He told me he always thought I’d be a coach, so when you hear something like that from someone you really trust and respect, I listened,” Manalac, now 40, told The Courant.
So he sat down with Mark Dantonio, his first coach with the Bearcats who’d moved on to Michigan State, at a high school coaches clinic. And Dantonio tried to talk him out of it.
“Maybe knowing who I was, the makeup I had competitively, he knew what he was doing and drove me to it,” Manalac said. “About two weeks later I was up at Michigan State working as a graduate assistant coach, and I haven’t looked back.”
Over four seasons with the Spartans, Manalac fell in love with the different facets of college football and decided to dedicate his life to it. He went on to coach linebackers at FCS Valparaiso, then took on the defensive coordinator role at Division II Ohio Dominican and FCS Bucknell. Working his way back up to the FBS level in 2021, Manalac went to Pittsburgh as a linebackers coach, where DC Randy Bates was operating the same four-down, attacking scheme he thrived in as a player.
“I spent the whole time taking notes on what I would do the next time I got that opportunity to be at the head of the table again,” he said. “I felt like I already had a doctorate in that defense. But now I literally went five more years in there, so (I’m a) specialized doctor of the defense, if you will.”
The Pittsburgh defense was known for being aggressive and pressure-heavy. It ranked top 30 in the FBS in turnovers gained in three of the five seasons Manalac was there.
“They’re gonna put pressure on you in a lot of different ways, they’re gonna mix up the looks, but yet keep it very simplistic for our guys,” UConn head coach Jason Candle said. “In today’s college football, you want to be aggressive. The rules are starting to change in the sense that it’s limited possessions, you want to be able to create as much havoc as you can, create as many turnovers as you possibly can. And give the punches rather than take them.”
Pittsburgh had 11 defensive players drafted during Manalac’s time, and will likely see the list grow in April. Kyle Louis, who he helped develop into an All-American linebacker, is projected to hear his name called in the middle rounds.
The Panthers made four bowl appearances in the last five years, including a six-overtime loss to Candle and Toledo in the 2024 GameAbove Sports Bowl. When Candle took the UConn job, he was looking for coordinators who can teach and develop players. Manalac had a proven track record.
“This is still amateur athletics and as much as we try to cloud that picture at times, I think this is a very influential age for young people and we want to surround them with really good representations of what it should look like,” Candle said.
Manalac was quickly sold.
“It felt very similar to those types of programs that I’ve been a part of and enjoyed, a developmental program. Coaches wanted to be there, won championships, developed guys for the NFL. I wanted to be here and build it, so that was exciting for me,” he said. “Doing my research, obviously they had back-to-back nine-win seasons and bowl games here. I was certainly excited to join Coach Candle and his staff and work under his leadership. Really excited to be here.”
The Huskies will have a different look on defense from the 3-3-5 scheme that Matt Brock introduced and had success with over the last two seasons. But the core principles will largely remain the same.
“We want to be aggressive,” Manalac said. “I think for fans watching us on TV or at the stadium, I hope it’s as simple as watching a group of guys running fast, hitting hard and making plays, and having fun playing the greatest game in the world.”