New University of Maine head football coach Nick Charlton has promoted wide receivers coach Andrew Dresner to offensive coordinator, the position Charlton held this past season before he was named to succeed Joe Harasymiak as head coach.
Harasymiak was named the defensive backs coach at the University of Minnesota on Dec. 20.
Charlton said he likes having continuity in the program but was quick to point out that was not the primary reason Dresner was promoted.
“Ultimately, Andrew is the right guy for the job,” Charlton said. “It wasn’t a difficult decision.
“He has a really creative mind. He brought a lot of different things to our offense,” Charlton said. “He had some great ideas.”
The UMaine head coach also said Dresner has a healthy relationship with the players.
Charlton said he has not decided whether he will still call the plays or Dresner will take over that duty.
The 30-year-old Dresner was the offensive coordinator at Pace University in New York in 2017 and this past season was his first at UMaine.
“It’s definitely exciting,” Dresner said. “This past season was a great one to be a part of and to be as much involved in the game plan as I was.
“We made strides every week on offense, and it’s nice that Nick has the confidence in me [to run the offense]. I’m looking forward to the challenge.”
He said the offense will continue to be diversified.
“We have an identity. We will run the football aggressively, and we’ll be physical in that part of the game. But we’ll also be able to go four-wide [receivers] and spread the defense horizontally. We will run at safeties, but we’ll also look to throw over their heads, too,” said Dresner, who added that they will always have a few gadget plays in the arsenal.
“I think all the ones we used this year worked,” he said.
Charlton and Dresner agreed that having a veteran offensive unit with eight returning starters will make the transition easier.
UMaine Athletic Director Ken Ralph said he was “thrilled” by Dresner’s promotion.
“He does a great job. The players really respond well to him,” Ralph said. “He is super organized, and he has a fantastic future in football.”
UMaine’s offense averaged 26.5 points per game en route to the Colonial Athletic Association title and the school’s first-ever berth in the Football Championship Subdivision semifinals.
That was the best scoring output since the 2013 season.
Three Black Bear receivers wound up in the top 10 in receptions in the CAA and five finished with at least 30 receptions.
Dresner was a quarterback at Simsbury High School in Connecticut and continued his playing career at Division III Union College in New York.
He spent four seasons at Division II Merrimack College in Massachusetts before spending one season at Pace, where he helped the offense improve its numbers in over 10 different categories in 2017.
He was the quarterbacks coach and then the pass game coordinator at Merrimack. He was also the recruiting coordinator. Additionally, he was an assistant at his alma mater, Union College, and at Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
Dresner enjoys life in eastern Maine.
“It’s a cool place to live. It has been a really nice change of pace for me. People love football here, and that’s the best part about it,” he said.
Charlton’s is expected to name a defensive coordinator to replace Corey Hetherman, who took a similar position at CAA rival James Madison University (Virginia), in the near future.