Looking over the current landscape of Maryland athletics, we may be experiencing unprecedented standards of excellence in more programs than we've seen in recent memory. The men's and women's soccer teams compete and succeed at the highest levels. Sasho Cirovski has just recruited the #1 incoming class for 2015. The men's and women's basketball teams were both rated in the top ten at the end of this season and have won 62 games to date. The women are vying for a national championship this weekend and we're used to them reaching the Final Four. Brenda Frese has taken the women's program to unprecedented heights including a national championship, and we know her success on the recruiting trail. She doesn't rebuild; she reloads. Mark Turgeon has the men's program on the path to recapturing the historic success attained previously by Lefty Driesell and Gary Williams. Turge has just signed arguably the highest ranking big man ever (or certainly since Moses Malone although he never actually played here), and if the five new faces [Bender, Bryant, Carter, Lee (hopefully), and Stone were all coming from high school] might just also have the #1 incoming class. The lacrosse programs are in the very capable hands of Cathy Reese and John Tillman, and compete at the top echelon of their respective sports routinely. And John Szefc has the baseball program scaling new heights.
In short, this should be a time of great euphoria for all of us who love the black & gold. However, there's something missing...much like the feeling of driving an 8-cylinder car that's just firing on 6-cylinders. And (to further the analogy) just like a car that keeps stalling out, we desperately need a jump.....to the football program. Understand that I started following Maryland football as a kid in 1955. Ironically, my first year coincided with Jim Tatum's last year before he departed for North Carolina. That's 60 years or three generations of watching Terps football.
With this time horizon and the perspective that comes with it, I feel comfortable saying that Randy Edsall is NOT the problem with Maryland football. [Unfortunately he's not the solution either.] What he does represent is a symptom of what happens when the same poor decision making is made over and over. Edsall is no more the problem than Tommy Mont, Lou Saban, Bob Ward, Roy Lester, Joe Krivak, Mark Duffner, or Ron Vanderlinden were. In many ways, they're all victims.
Ever ask yourself why the university can attract personnel to build and sustain success in a number of sports, but continue to fail in football? Perhaps hires in the non-revenue sports don't get (the same level of) scrutiny from the Board of Regents like football and basketball do. The names I mentioned in the previous paragraph had one thing in common. They ALL had losing records coaching Maryland football. It's not that there haven't been success stories at College Park. Starting with the end of WW II, there have been six football coaches at Maryland who have had winning records: Paul "Bear Bryant, Jim Tatum, Tom Nugent, Jerry Claiborne, Bobby Ross, and Ralph Friedgen. Bryant, Tatum, Claiborne and Ross all left of their own volition to accept other jobs, and the success they achieved as Terps went with them. Moreover, it never translated to a cultural shift at Maryland where football took hold as an important part of the fabric of the university.. More likely, success under those regimes was due to the powerful personalities of these men and their strategic and tactical decision making on game day.
I can't say that I have the solution....if it were that easy, then someone would have thought of it already. I think, however, that there needs to be a new approach. The powers-that-be in College Park seem content with the status quo. I don't see the BOR suddenly becoming visionaries. So, in order to move the needle, someone with position power is going to have to become involved. Thinking in terms of Maryland being a state university, that "someone" is going to have to be a high state official...either the Governor, or head of the State Senate, etc. I believe that person should appoint a SMALL group (5 - 9 people) to take apart the program and then put it back together. Perhaps a Kevin Plank (not just because he's a CEO, but also because he played football here), Len Elmore (not just because he played basketball, but also because he's a Harvard educated lawyer, Tom McMillan, Gary Williams, perhaps even a guy like Chick Hernandez who has been covering MD sports since he graduated.
We can add facilities and that's great; however, IMHO, the lack of a real culture for football is the disease. If we don't cure that, then 20 years from now....and long after Randy Edsall has departed and is retired, we'll be still discussing the same issues. Bear Bryant left after only one winning season because he didn't think he could sustain a winning culture here.
I believe we can fix football. We must fix football due to its financial impact on everything else. However, we're not going to fix anything by applying the same tired ideas and failed policies of the past three generations.
In short, this should be a time of great euphoria for all of us who love the black & gold. However, there's something missing...much like the feeling of driving an 8-cylinder car that's just firing on 6-cylinders. And (to further the analogy) just like a car that keeps stalling out, we desperately need a jump.....to the football program. Understand that I started following Maryland football as a kid in 1955. Ironically, my first year coincided with Jim Tatum's last year before he departed for North Carolina. That's 60 years or three generations of watching Terps football.
With this time horizon and the perspective that comes with it, I feel comfortable saying that Randy Edsall is NOT the problem with Maryland football. [Unfortunately he's not the solution either.] What he does represent is a symptom of what happens when the same poor decision making is made over and over. Edsall is no more the problem than Tommy Mont, Lou Saban, Bob Ward, Roy Lester, Joe Krivak, Mark Duffner, or Ron Vanderlinden were. In many ways, they're all victims.
Ever ask yourself why the university can attract personnel to build and sustain success in a number of sports, but continue to fail in football? Perhaps hires in the non-revenue sports don't get (the same level of) scrutiny from the Board of Regents like football and basketball do. The names I mentioned in the previous paragraph had one thing in common. They ALL had losing records coaching Maryland football. It's not that there haven't been success stories at College Park. Starting with the end of WW II, there have been six football coaches at Maryland who have had winning records: Paul "Bear Bryant, Jim Tatum, Tom Nugent, Jerry Claiborne, Bobby Ross, and Ralph Friedgen. Bryant, Tatum, Claiborne and Ross all left of their own volition to accept other jobs, and the success they achieved as Terps went with them. Moreover, it never translated to a cultural shift at Maryland where football took hold as an important part of the fabric of the university.. More likely, success under those regimes was due to the powerful personalities of these men and their strategic and tactical decision making on game day.
I can't say that I have the solution....if it were that easy, then someone would have thought of it already. I think, however, that there needs to be a new approach. The powers-that-be in College Park seem content with the status quo. I don't see the BOR suddenly becoming visionaries. So, in order to move the needle, someone with position power is going to have to become involved. Thinking in terms of Maryland being a state university, that "someone" is going to have to be a high state official...either the Governor, or head of the State Senate, etc. I believe that person should appoint a SMALL group (5 - 9 people) to take apart the program and then put it back together. Perhaps a Kevin Plank (not just because he's a CEO, but also because he played football here), Len Elmore (not just because he played basketball, but also because he's a Harvard educated lawyer, Tom McMillan, Gary Williams, perhaps even a guy like Chick Hernandez who has been covering MD sports since he graduated.
We can add facilities and that's great; however, IMHO, the lack of a real culture for football is the disease. If we don't cure that, then 20 years from now....and long after Randy Edsall has departed and is retired, we'll be still discussing the same issues. Bear Bryant left after only one winning season because he didn't think he could sustain a winning culture here.
I believe we can fix football. We must fix football due to its financial impact on everything else. However, we're not going to fix anything by applying the same tired ideas and failed policies of the past three generations.
