NEW HAVEN — Dante Reno, seeing his football future wasn’t at South Carolina, entered the transfer portal the day before it closed, and started fielding interest. For a highly recruited quarterback out of Connecticut prep schools, who’d barely scratched the surface of his ability in the SEC, there would be plenty.
But he had something simple, yet a 180-degree kind of directional change in mind. “I got home from a couple of visits,” Reno said, “and I talked to my mom, ‘What do you think of the idea of playing with Dad?’”
Of course, Toni Reno gave her son the obvious answer. Only his father, Coach Tony Reno, could open the gates to play football at Yale.
“So I asked him, ‘What do you think about my coming for a visit?’” Dante said. “A bunch of guys at a dinner, I just hung around the guys. I said to my Dad, ‘I want you to be coach and I just want to be a player for a night, and see how that is.’ That was a big thing, because he’d never coached me in my life. He always let other people coach me.”
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The allure to play for his father, one of the most successful coaches in Yale’s history, eventually coupled them together on June 9, when the entire Reno family gathered to give Tony the decision at their Sturbridge, Mass., home. When the Bulldogs open the school’s 152nd season, against Holy Cross at the Yale Bowl on Saturday at noon, Dante Reno will be under center.
“He’s the starting quarterback, he’s earned it,” Tony Reno told WTNH-TV during fall camp. “He fits our offense very well and we’re excited to get him going.”
Maybe the biggest winner of all is Toni Reno, who doesn’t have to travel south to see her son play, or split her time. “But she does have to go to all our away games now,” Dante said.
Dante Reno, 6 feet 2 and 205 pounds, played at Loomis Chaffee in Windsor and Cheshire Academy where he completed 64 percent of his passes for 2,358 yards and 20 touchdowns before landing at one of his dream programs, South Carolina. Reno made the SEC’s academic honor roll and took a few snaps as a true freshman.
Heisman hopeful LaNorris Sellers has a lock on the Gamecocks’ starting quarterback job, but Reno’s skill set would fit most offenses well, and vice versa. Yale offensive coordinator Chris Ostrowsky spreads the offense, using West Coast principles, a lot of quick slant patterns, throwing the ball on time. Reno, with his arm talent and the football IQ of a coach’s son, won the job in competition with Marshall Howe.
“When I first got here, I wanted to make sure I was here for both summer (camps),” Dante said. “Here, you don’t have to be here compared to a school with scholarships, so for me a big part was being here, being with the guys for the first summer, and the second summer, and just working, being here late with Coach O and studying the playbook.
Learning the ways the program runs here, the ways we operate, the way we earn stuff, rather than receiving stuff. At a power (conference) program, they give you gear; here you’ve got to earn your stuff.”
The father and son coach-quarterback combination may be a first in Yale history, dating back to 1872, but the history in the offing is more than that. Tony Reno has led Yale to 74-46 record and four Ivy League championships since taking over in 2012, but the Ivy League has always opted out of FCS playoff football. They opted in after last season, so now there is a national championship to chase, a move based on a proposal written by Yale receiver Mason Shipp, who chairs the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee
“Honestly, it was kind of hard to believe,” said defensive back Inumidun Ayo-Durojaiye. “As we all know, the Ivy League can be slow with change sometimes, but for the kind of football that is here, it was amazing that Yale, one of the most historic brands in football, again has a chance to add to the great legacy.”
Yale coach Tony Reno now has his son at quarterback, and the FCS playoffs to pursue. (Winslow Townson/Getty Images)
Dante Reno assumed his position of leadership amid the Yale legacy, knowing many of the players from coming to practices or games in the past, understanding the tradition having grown up around it. He worked to win the trust of his new teammates, showing them how much he wanted to be there and win with them.
“What I noticed from Dante, he’s been around the culture for some time,” Yale running back and captain Josh Pitsenberger said. “But you don’t see too many transfers come in and try to buy in immediately. That’s exactly what he did. He brought guys along, he stepped up in the offense, he led meetings with all the skill players, 7-on-7, installing (offense), film, Dante led all of that.
“His leadership is one of the biggest pieces, and the fact he can play good football is just a plus.”
History, legacy, culture, one family now has so much influence over all of that. A quarterback playing for his father can’t always be easy. All eyes will be on Dante Reno as the season goes, all Tony’s decisions will be scrutinized as the stakes get higher. Dante Reno has had a dad all his life; he’s at Yale to play for a coach. The other day, Dante threw the ball across his body, a no-no, and Coach Reno let him know about it.
“It’s a little different when your kid’s out there playing,” Dante said, “but when you step on the field, it’s more coach to player than dad to player. He’ll cuss me out sometimes if he needs to on the field. But being able to differentiate off the field, on the field, like being at home, being in the facility, it’s not like two different worlds, but you kind of half to be player-coach then, son and dad at the end.”
