Talk to any true, young Maryland fan and they will tell you they were less than enthusiastic about the hiring of Randy Edsall. Not everyone was totally against it, but no one was particularly excited either. He seemed like a run-of-the-mill, moderately successful coach that would hopefully inject a youthful exuberance. Nothing about him really stood out as "This guy is excellent."
He did take Connecticut from an FCS (as it's now known) school to an FBS school, and he ended up over time winning a Big East title. Ok, fine. At the time though, the Big East's best teams had no less than four losses. UCONN got lucky enough to win a tie breaker. Anyway, I suppose that should still be considered an accomplishment.
His foray into the Maryland football coaching lexicon has led to no such accomplishments. After his disastrous 2-10 year, he now has a coaching record with more losses than wins. In nearly 20 games, he has beaten a top-20 team once. ONCE. If you're moving from Connecticut to Maryland you should probably have more than one victory over a top-20 team. Even in crappy years Ralph Friedgen beat ranked opponents. On his watch, the Terps beat Florida State a couple of times. That alone should be cause to celebrate.
Let's talk about that. The 2010 ACC Coach of the Year was fired after leading a team to a 9-4 season after having a disastrous 2-10 season of his own the year before. He did it with a redshirt freshman at quarterback. Yet new dipshit AD Kevin Anderson decided nine wins wasn't good enough to extend the portly coach. Nine wins at Maryland! That should be praised around these parts. Outside of Fridge's early dream seasons, that is the apex of a program like Maryland. It should be celebrated, not dismantled. Then he goes and gets a guy who is not a sexy hire at all compared to Mike Leach. Leach is a colorful personality with a prolific offense. For whatever reason, U-Md. was just too good for him (best sarcastic tone).
So enter the young gun who would rather worry about earrings and facial hair than not getting into the end zone. Hey guys, here's your new coach, Joseph Stalin. Enjoy being tortured by a man that thinks he's too good for any of year and doesn't care about wins. He cares about the Edsall Way. Which seems to be the way down.
There is about a .5% chance Edsall is relieved of his duties following this season. His exorbitant contract is prohibitive in that regard. (By the way, $10 million? Unearned. What were they thinking?) So we will sit back and give him another year to get his guys in here and play the Edsall Way. My question is, who the hell wants to play for this guy who never ever takes any blame for anything? Not the five-star recruits, I can tell you that.
Thanks, Edsall for making my alma mater the laughing stock of the conference. I hope you find a way to make this work because you're driving this whole thing off a cliff. No one is going to come watch games next year because of you. You're window is closing. Miami must be kicking themselves right now wondering how on earth they lost to the Terps in 2011. Oh, and if Mike Leach all of a sudden makes Washington State good, I'm going to have a shit-fit.
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