UConn football is transitioning to a new head coach, former Toledo head man Jason Candle, and is rounding out its coaching staff. This officially includes a former Tennessee football defender, LaTroy Lewis, who has accepted the role as the Huskies’ defensive line coach.
Lewis was also with Candle at Toledo this past season, making the transition natural. That was his first year as a position coach after spending 2022-24 at Michigan as a graduate assistant. From 2021-22, he was a special teams analyst at Wake Forest.
Before that, he was a graduate assistant at South Alabama. He began his coaching career at Akron from 2020-21 as a graduate assistant, as well.
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Lewis played at Tennessee on the defensive line from 2012-16. He initially committed to Derek Dooley, but transitioned to Butch Jones in year two. He did not play in that initial first season, though, and earned a redshirt.
By his final year, he was a big contributor on defense. He played in 11 games, starting in four. That 2016 season was the year that the Vols got off to a great start and downed both Georgia on the road and Florida at home.
He would go undrafted in the 2017 NFL Draft. He signed with the Oakland Raiders for the preseason, but was waived. He would get picked up by the Houston Texans and make his regular-season NFL debut. In 2018, he returned to the state of Tennessee to play for the Tennessee Titans. He played for the Houston Roughnecks in the XFL in 2020 before beginning his coaching career.
He is from Akron, Ohio, where he played for Archbishop Hoban in high school. He was considered a four-star prospect out of high school by ESPN.
