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Why can't MD FB be dominant?

RandyM

By RandyM
in Maryland Terp Football

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Birds of B'more Hangout Grand Counsel

Birds of B'more

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Because the fans don't support the football program.

That's not accurate. If you were at the Orange Bowl back in 2001 you'd know that's not true. Same goes for 2002-03. The problem with MD fans is that they are very fickle. The seven years of mediocrity (despite several decent season mixed in) turned people off. If Ralph had sustained the success close to what he had in his first 3 seasons, we wouldn't be having this discussion. But short of that, then yes, support for the program will be lukewarm. MD has to do 2 things now to maintain a good following.

1) Hire the right coach

2) Spend enough money

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The Epic Major Leaguer

The Epic

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That's not accurate. If you were at the Orange Bowl back in 2001 you'd know that's not true. Same goes for 2002-03.

In that same time since 2003, Maryland basketball has been good-not-great. Maybe I'm missing something (like the fact that the CBK team won a title), but the basketball team hasn't really been hurting for attendance, have they?

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Birds of B'more Hangout Grand Counsel

Birds of B'more

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In that same time since 2003, Maryland basketball has been good-not-great. Maybe I'm missing something (like the fact that the CBK team won a title), but the basketball team hasn't really been hurting for attendance, have they?

When I was last living in MD and had football season tix, there was a waiting list for basketball tickets and you had to have a certain number of "Terp-points" (which equates to Terrapin Club donations over a number of years) in order to get them. For most people, the only way to get to a basketball game was to wait for unclaimed student tickets to go on sale for crappy non-conference games while school was out, or buy on the secondary market. Last season, I saw banner ads on The Sun website advertising basketball ticket packages for sale that included tickets to the Duke and UNC games. That sort of thing would have been unheard of before. I'm sure the lousy economy has played a role in all this too, but it would seem MBB tickets are not in as high demand as they used to be.

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OregonBird Major Leaguer

OregonBird

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That's not accurate. If you were at the Orange Bowl back in 2001 you'd know that's not true. Same goes for 2002-03. The problem with MD fans is that they are very fickle. The seven years of mediocrity (despite several decent season mixed in) turned people off. If Ralph had sustained the success close to what he had in his first 3 seasons' date=' we wouldn't be having this discussion. But short of that, then yes, support for the program will be lukewarm. MD has to do 2 things now to maintain a good following.

1) Hire the right coach

2) Spend enough money[/quote']

I'd also say

3) Win (kind of goes with 1)

4) Brand itself the right way. I still think that is one thing that Oregon does really, really well and with Nike's help. The wacky uniforms and style of play are all part of the Oregon brand.

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VThokies Major Leaguer Cup of Coffee

VThokies

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No one cares about VT hoops

I'm not entirely sure what point you are trying to make here. I completely agree with you. VT's basketball program has been largely irrelevant for essentially their entire existence. I was more just trying to make it clear that the team isn't practicing in a barn as some people seem to think.

Seems to me that VT and MD face similar struggles in different sports. I hope both programs find success in the coming years, though it seems unlikely for the VT BB team this year given the injuries they have suffered.

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AgentOrange Veteran All-Star

AgentOrange

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I'm not entirely sure what point you are trying to make here. I completely agree with you. VT's basketball program has been largely irrelevant for essentially their entire existence. I was more just trying to make it clear that the team isn't practicing in a barn as some people seem to think.

Seems to me that VT and MD face similar struggles in different sports. I hope both programs find success in the coming years, though it seems unlikely for the VT BB team this year given the injuries they have suffered.

From you response, it sure does sound like you did get my point. ;)

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accinfo Major Leaguer Rising Star

accinfo

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When I was last living in MD and had football season tix' date=' there was a waiting list for basketball tickets and you had to have a certain number of "Terp-points" (which equates to Terrapin Club donations over a number of years) in order to get them. For most people, the only way to get to a basketball game was to wait for unclaimed student tickets to go on sale for crappy non-conference games while school was out, or buy on the secondary market. Last season, I saw banner ads on The Sun website advertising basketball ticket packages for sale that included tickets to the Duke and UNC games. That sort of thing would have been unheard of before. I'm sure the lousy economy has played a role in all this too, but it would seem MBB tickets are not in as high demand as they used to be.[/quote']

You are right on the money here. Maryland basketball tickets have not been sold out to date with the exception of the Duke game. This despite them being co-champions of the regular season ACC last year. Why? My opinion is when you win a National Championship you set a higher expectation level. Then you don't make the sweet 16 since 2003 people lose some interest in the program. You throw in a down economy as well. Also since they moved to Comcast they have more seats to sell so it is a little harder to make a MD BB ticket a tough ticket.

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JohnD Major Leaguer

JohnD

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Maryland football hasn't been dominant since the early 1950s. College football has changed a lot since then and Maryland has never really bothered to put any resources into making sure the program keeps up. That's why beloved Jerry Claiborne left Maryland to go to Kentucky in the 1970s. It's why Bobby Ross left Maryland to go to Georgia Tech. Since Bobby Ross left in the mid to late 1980s Maryland has fired each coach it went on to hire. In addition, none of the coaches it hired were all that sought after or desired.

Joe Krivak took over after Ross left. Krivak was the offensive coordinator under Ross, lasted a few dismal seasons, and was canned.

Mark Duffner took over after Krivak left and brought his run and shoot offense to Maryland. The Terps routinely lost games 49-35 and went to one bowl during his tenure. They tied Lousiana Tech in the Liberty Bowl. Debbie Yow came in, gave Duffner a four-year extension the year before his deal was up, and then fired him the next year.

Ron Vanderlinden, then the DC for a rising Northwestern team, replaced Duffner and started losing games 21-10. The best season he had was his last one, when he went 5-6. He lasted four years. He was also given a four-year extension after his third year, and then fired after that fourth year. I was a student there those four years and I think I went to one game my last two years combined. It was a complete non-entity.

Ralph Friedgen came in after a bunch of alumni, including Boomer Esiason, essentially forced Yow to interview him. He got the job and succeeded far beyond anyone had since Bobby Ross was in town. We all know what's happened since then.

The common denominator has been that Maryland has often either gone cheap on coaches or hasn't done enough to keep the good ones it had. Friedgen was willing to stay because it was his alma mater, but he did almost consider offers from Georgia Tech and from around the NFL early on. Since then most of the improvements done for the program have been cosmetic and designed to raise more revenue, but not exactly benefit the program beyond that. Yes there's a new locker room/field house complex that includes offices, film rooms, and a player's only dining hall. But there's also the sky boxes, which seemed soft of foolish even as the stadium was seeing a lot more sell outs and near sell outs.

But what else? Football simply isn't a priority for the school or for the boosters. At least not in the way that basketball is, which as was mentioned, continues to get really innovative improvements inside Comcast Center, including a basketball-only practice center renovation. The tens of millions of dollars spent on that simply never seems to make its way to football. Maryland is a basketball school in a basketball conference. That's why the ACC expanded to begin with, so it could try to pretend it cared about football too, rather than risk losing Florida State, Georgia Tech, and/or Clemson, which at the time was somewhat of a concern.

But the school has never put the financial resources needed to make the program better. Heck, TCU spends more than twice as much on football as Maryland does. Wake Forest and Duke, both football juggernauts, right?, put more money into their football programs than Maryland does. Maryland's practice fields are a big patch of grass enclosed by a fence and stuck between some classrooms and a parking garage. Bad weather has them adjusting their practice schedules to avoid rain, storms, snow, you name it. They were seriously looking at riding buses for several road games just a couple of years ago, including four and five hour trips to games in North Carolina. That's simply not what big name football teams do, even if it seems reasonable.

To go with that, the team charges pro-prices (40-some dollars for some football and basketball tickets) to go with 15 dollars to park, in an area with so many other competing interests. The Redskins and Ravens rule in the metro areas, followed by the MD basketball team. But you've also got Georgetown, the Wizards, the Capitals, the Orioles, and the Nationals all competing for those entertainment dollars just among sports teams. There are so many other events that can take away fans, too.

Meanwhile Maryland loves to boast about teams no one cares two licks about until they win championships, and sometimes even then, no one cares at all about how good the competitive cheerleading squad (and lets be honest, that's an absurdly bad joke of a program for any college) is, or water polo, or swimming and diving teams are.

Contrast that with Oklahoma State, for example. T. Boone Pickens has donated more than 200 million dollars to the football program there and basically selected his coach (Gundy is a former OK St QB) and the results are starting to pay off in the couple of years since then. Their facilities are top notch and the recruits have gotten increasingly better. This year Okie State was in the race for the Big 12 title game going down to the final couple weeks of the season, even though Oklahoma and Texas are teams they play every year.

Maryland has rich alumni like one of the co-founders of Google, the creator of the Muppets, Larry David, and others. Only Kevin Plank seems really interested in doing anything for football, and that's just recently. But with no support from the school or the alumni to make the football program top notch, with only weak investments in the resources and the facilities, and the fact that cutting corners and hitting a certain bottom line are far more important to the school than anything else the football team does, Maryland will continue to be a mediocre program at best. Heck, it's exactly why it was a total non-entity (far less interesting than it was even during Freidgen's worst years)

And all of that is among the reasons why I thought Friedgen, who won eight games in 2008, and nine games here in 2010, should have stayed. He did pretty good considering how hamstrung he was. I'd have liked to see what he could have done with an investment in resources.

The Terps can't be like the Nationals, who want to see fans show up and invest themselves in the team before going out and making the investments that capture fan interest. That's why the Nats finally capitulated and signed Jayson Werth to that insane deal. You have to spend money to make money, and until Maryland gets serious about becoming a football school as well as a basketball school it'll always be a place where 8-4 is considered a really good season. From the top on down Maryland hasn't really tried. Now that it seems interested in imposing a newer, tougher standard on the program, it needs to do its job to meet those standards as well.

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Birds of B'more Hangout Grand Counsel

Birds of B'more

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Mark Duffner took over after Krivak left and brought his run and shoot offense to Maryland. The Terps routinely lost games 49-35 and went to one bowl during his tenure. They tied Lousiana Tech in the Liberty Bowl. Debbie Yow came in, gave Duffner a four-year extension the year before his deal was up, and then fired him the next year.

Other than this paragraph, I pretty much agree with you. I'm quite certain it was Krivak who was coaching the year they played in the Independence Bowl. And it was after that season that Andy Geiger gave him a 4-year extension. But after a 2-9 record in 1991, plus public criticism from some players, Krivak resigned and Duffner was hired in 1992. Duffner did have one winning season (6-5 in 1995) but MD was not invited to a bowl, as there were far fewer bowl games back then and 6-win teams didn't usually make it.

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