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Edsall: Terps Fans Should Be "True Fans"

BaltimoreTerp

By BaltimoreTerp
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ccbird Hangout Grand Counsel

ccbird

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I can't believe some people still believe in this guy. Edsall just doesn't have what it takes plain and simple. I can't believe some people can't see that he is in over his head. Now, Turg on the other hand really does have a rebuilding process and I can tell you right now that I'm fairly confident his tenure is going to be a good one. The bigest misconception in sports is "time". The truth of the matter is usually what you see and sense about a coach or player right out of the gate is usually how things go. Rarely, does someone suprise you. TO clarify, I'm not really talking about initial results. Take Turg for example, who I expect to have a rough year, or any other number of athletes who have a rough start to a career statistically. I'm talking about a general sense if a player or coach is going to be successful over the long haul. Take, Chris Tillman for example. It took me all of 4 or 5 big league starts to basically lower any expectations I had after his minor league career. I could just tell he wasn't going to make it in the bigs. Maybe it's just me, but I rarely get caught off guard long term with anybody in sports.

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Birds of B'more Hangout Grand Counsel

Birds of B'more

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First of all, if you want an athletic director who is going to help turn the academic image of the program around, you do better than the head of a program at the edge of Division I who has essentially zero experience working in this kind of environment and who has much of the academic issues already taken care of by his school.

If you are hiring a principal to turn around a poorly-performing gigantic inner-city high school, do you hire the headmaster of the little ultra-competitive prep school out in the exurbs? Or do you look for a principal, or highly-regarded assistant, from a school that has already overcome similar problems?

Second, if you want to replace the coaches, you do a much better job of handling the changes. Especially in football, where he angered half of the fan base (including a lot of the boosters) by firing Friedgen at all, and angered many of them and many of the remaining group with the search and result. Even in basketball with Williams retiring he angered a lot of people with how that search went.

Third, I do think that in an ideal college athletics world academics would be number-one. I fully support moving in that direction. However, Anderson's way of doing that is undercutting himself by angering not only the fans in general, but specifically those with the money. So not only does he try to force a seismic change in the revenue sports that would take several years to realistically work anyway, he's now forced to cut teams whose athletes are already doing very well academically.

Fourth, for all the talk about this being Edsall's dream job, and even giving him the benefit of the doubt for coaching elsewhere for a while, he came in with a "my way or the highway" attitude and manner of talking down to the fans that shows a severe lack of knowledge of the culture at Maryland. This is a fan base that at best has high expectations in most sports and at worst has unrealistic expectations in football. So to come in with a plan to tear the program down and rebuild it yet fail to communicate properly with the fans (again, many with a lot of money) is not good. Especially, again, coming off of a coach like Friedgen.

So this is an issue on three different levels: the university administration, the athletic department, and the football program. If any of them want anything to get accomplished, there had better be some progress soon or else the money dries up and the fans leave and barely a decade after the Friedgen hire the school is back to square one.

I actually am hoping they turn it around on all sides, even if it may not seem that way.

I agree with pretty much everything here, but I think your comment regarding fan expectations is debatable. Particularly the part that some fans have unrealistic expectations for football. While I don't doubt that there might be a small extreme who think that UM should be ACC Champions every year and a national championship mixed in, I don't sense that attitude is prevalent at all. What I do sense is a frustration that aside from several brief periods of success that weren't sustained for whatever reason (Ross years, early Friedgen years), that the program has underachieved. If I'm wrong, then so be it....but I refuse to believe that the ceiling for football at Maryland is an occasional 8 or 9 win season, occasional 2 win seasons, with years of mediocrity mixed in. And so I think it's hard to point at unrealistic fan expectations as an issue when the program isn't even reaching its potential in the first place.

Which leads me to your final point about this being as much about the university administration and athletic department as it is the football program itself, which I think is spot on. If UM ever does want to have a program that can compete nationally (and by that I don't mean national championships, but at least a semi-regular fixture in the Top 25) then it has to start with the top....and I don't sense that the commitment is there from those who run the university, even when it comes from the money a quality football program brings in. They seem content to take whatever revenue-sharing they get from the ACC, mix in the revenues from the handful of loyal fans they have with donations from a couple benefactors, and call it a day.

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CT203 AA

CT203

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I can't believe some people still believe in this guy. Edsall just doesn't have what it takes plain and simple. I can't believe some people can't see that he is in over his head. Now, Turg on the other hand really does have a rebuilding process and I can tell you right now that I'm fairly confident his tenure is going to be a good one. The bigest misconception in sports is "time". The truth of the matter is usually what you see and sense about a coach or player right out of the gate is usually how things go. Rarely, does someone suprise you. TO clarify, I'm not really talking about initial results. Take Turg for example, who I expect to have a rough year, or any other number of athletes who have a rough start to a career statistically. I'm talking about a general sense if a player or coach is going to be successful over the long haul. Take, Chris Tillman for example. It took me all of 4 or 5 big league starts to basically lower any expectations I had after his minor league career. I could just tell he wasn't going to make it in the bigs. Maybe it's just me, but I rarely get caught off guard long term with anybody in sports.

So after not even a full year and not able to recruit his athletes... "he doesnt have what it takes"

That is laughable. He only took uconn from D1-AA nobody to a team that went to bowl games just about every year and a BCS game in a period of 10 years of being at the D1 level. He only put about a dozen players in the NFL and had the 2nd most players drafted out of any school on the first day of the 2009 draft, only behind USC who had 5. Players that the big schools overlooked yet he sculpted them into NFL players.

Edsall builds his teams from the O-line and D-line. If you cannot win at the line of scrimmage you will not win games. From what I have watched both lines are pathetic for Maryland this year. Edsall is getting rid of dead weight and getting players who will fit his system and believe in his style. If you cant follow his rules you dont belong playing for him.

I talked to a UConn player this year and he said to expect a lot of transfers from Maryland (thats what he has been hearing). He said Edsall was a terrific coach and will do fine once he gets his people.

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ccbird Hangout Grand Counsel

ccbird

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So after not even a full year and not able to recruit his athletes... "he doesnt have what it takes"

That is laughable. He only took uconn from D1-AA nobody to a team that went to bowl games just about every year and a BCS game in a period of 10 years of being at the D1 level. He only put about a dozen players in the NFL and had the 2nd most players drafted out of any school on the first day of the 2009 draft, only behind USC who had 5. Players that the big schools overlooked yet he sculpted them into NFL players.

Edsall builds his teams from the O-line and D-line. If you cannot win at the line of scrimmage you will not win games. From what I have watched both lines are pathetic for Maryland this year. Edsall is getting rid of dead weight and getting players who will fit his system and believe in his style. If you cant follow his rules you dont belong playing for him.

I talked to a UConn player this year and he said to expect a lot of transfers from Maryland (thats what he has been hearing). He said Edsall was a terrific coach and will do fine once he gets his people.

I'll make sure to bump this thread in 3 years and say I told you so. You can do the same if I'm wrong, but I'm not.
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CT203 AA

CT203

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Who the hell doesn't go to a bowl game? More than half of 1-A teams do. Not Maryland, though, at least this year.

And Maryland has as many or more players in the NFL than Florida State does right now.

Maryland and FSU both have 29 players.

And if you are trying to say Maryland has more NFL players than UConn... Well they absolutely should. They are an established program, not 12 years old, and are in fertile recruiting grounds. UConn had to recruit against the Big 10 and BC and Florida for all the top recruits in the region. They were left with nothing because they are a brand new program with no track record or history. Aaron Hernandez was suppose to go to UConn and took a visit to Florida without telling his brother DJ (UConn QB at the time) and while at Florida committed after having a verbal with UConn. That is what has happened for decades. Penn St, BC, Wisconsin, Indiana, UVA, etc poach the talent from UConn's backyard. UConn did a very good job of identifying over looked talent in Florida during Edsall's time and got some great players.

UConn has never had a 4 star recruit in its history. They get 2 and 3 star recruits. They get bottom of the barrel left overs and that is what Edsall had to work with. Yet he always had one of the top rushing RBs in the country. He always had one of the top defenses. His schemes and style always kept them competitive, for hte most part (they were most of hte time near the top in fewest penalties). He comes from the Tom Coughlin coaching tree and its all about playing mistake free football, controlling the clock and line of scrimmage and grinding out wins.

From everything I've read and seen from this season... Edsall is not the problem. The whole program was run poorly and the kids were free to do whatever they wanted with no consequence or being held liable. Edsall runs a very tight ship and if you fall out of line well you go to the bottom of the totem pole and have to prove and work your way back to where you belong. No one player is more important than the team and if you can't follow the rules and do something that has a negative impact or break the rules well Edsall shows no mercy.

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JohnD Major Leaguer

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Can't argue with most of what you said, mostly because I don't know. But your last paragraph is complete and total fiction. Or it's Edsall-biased propaganda. Maryland was hardly "thug-U" when he got here, and his coaching, especially from his assistants, has been disastrous. No one player may be more important, but with Edsall it's all about him. When the team comes out, it used to be "Your Maryland Terrapins!" Now it's "Randy Edsall and the Maryland Terrapins!" The guy did a good job up there, but he's looking like a total fraud here.

If he gets to one bowl game with Maryland I'll be surprised, to be perfectly honest.

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glenn__davis Hangout Grand Counsel

glenn__davis

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UConn has never had a 4 star recruit in its history. They get 2 and 3 star recruits. They get bottom of the barrel left overs and that is what Edsall had to work with. Yet he always had one of the top rushing RBs in the country. He always had one of the top defenses. His schemes and style always kept them competitive, for hte most part (they were most of hte time near the top in fewest penalties). He comes from the Tom Coughlin coaching tree and its all about playing mistake free football, controlling the clock and line of scrimmage and grinding out wins.

Really good posts all around in this thread from you, particularly regarding the lines, which I've brought up several times. You simply cannot win football games without being competitive at the line of scrimmage, regardless of what else you have going on.

The D-line is awful. I love Joe Vellano, he's got a ton of heart and has worked hard to become as good as he can be, but he's the best player on that line and no one fears Joe Vellano. There's a reason why this team is among the worst in the nation at stopping the run, and it's not all on the coaching.

Add in the high amount of injuries and the inconsistent (at best) QB play, and you have a recipe for a very poor season.

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glenn__davis Hangout Grand Counsel

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His #1 failure is Danny O'brien. The fact that the ALL-ACC rookie of the year QB can't get a sniff of the field because of CJ Brown is an absolute joke!

Huh?

The two were pretty much splitting time before O'Brien got hurt. In fact, O'Brien played the whole way against ND before he went down.

O'Brien pretty much stunk this year. If you want to blame the coaching staff for that, I can't argue for or against it, because I don't know. But he had his opportunities and did not capitalize.

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Hooded Viper Major Leaguer

Hooded Viper

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Huh?

The two were pretty much splitting time before O'Brien got hurt. In fact, O'Brien played the whole way against ND before he went down.

O'Brien pretty much stunk this year. If you want to blame the coaching staff for that, I can't argue for or against it, because I don't know. But he had his opportunities and did not capitalize.

Well that is what I get for not watching. My bad, I thought for sure DOB was sitting for quite a while.

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