Edsall the Coach

[Sports Guy]

You are exactly right. But remember how fickle the fans were with basketball too. It wasn't too long ago they were calling for Gary's head and blaming his recruiting for a couple average seasons.

Yea....I am definitely sensing a pattern with MD fans.

[PaulBako]

http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/sports/college/recruiting/2011/01/edsall_hire_a_home_run_analyst_says.html

Sounds like another successful coach that is employed by Maryland.

Just what we need, more 8 win seasons.

[brotherlo38]

Just what we need, more 8 win seasons.

You do realize that Leach averaged 8-9 wins a year right? Not sure why everyone thinks he was going to come here and start consistently rolling off 10 win seasons.

[BaltimoreTerp]

You do realize that Leach averaged 8-9 wins a year right? Not sure why everyone thinks he was going to come here and start consistently rolling off 10 win seasons.

Easier conference.

[brotherlo38]

Easier conference.

I don't think it's that easier. Yeah Texas and OU, but Nebraska was down for a lot of his time at TT and A&M is basically Clemson. Mizzou, Kansas, and K-State had some good years, but they've also had some mediocre to bad years. Then he had the annual game against Baylor. Not to mention his OOC was typically weak. I think he'd consistently put up 8-9 win seasons but I'm not sure he would've came here and started challenging for national titles and putting up 10+ wins a year.

I also wonder how recruiting would've been with him.

[JohnD]

Leach was a .500 coach in conference if you took away the annual Baylor beat down, when the team was roughly on par with Duke and Morgan State.

[Dr. FLK]

Leach was a .500 coach in conference if you took away the annual Baylor beat down, when the team was roughly on par with Duke and Morgan State.

What was his record if you take away Oklahoma/Texas teams that were better than any competition he'd face in the ACC?

[brotherlo38]

I think this is all correct, the OOC record may be off by a game or two. Not trying to deceive anyone if it is wrong, just did a lot of counting in my head and did it relatively fast.

Baylor - 9-1

Texas - 2-8

A&M - 7-3

OU - 3-7

Mizzou - 1-3

Iowa St. - 3-1

K-State - 5-1

Kansas - 5-1

Nebraska - 4-2

OKST - 6-4

Colorado - 1-3

OOC - 41-7

OOC v. BCS - 2-3

OOC v. non-BCS - 39-4

Bowl - 5-3

vs. B12 without Tx or OU - 42-18

vs. B12 without Baylor - 38-32

v. B12 ranked opponents - 9-24

[CSB Jack]

What was his record if you take away Oklahoma/Texas teams that were better than any competition he'd face in the ACC?

Taking out OU/Texas is about like taking out FSU/VT, except he wouldn't have to face VT every year if he was at Maryland.

I followed Big 12 football fairly closely over most of the past decade because I had a son that went to A&M beginning in 2001. Leach made Tech into an exciting team, no question, with a high flying offense. His system did not rely on getting top notch recruits, and he was able to outscore most teams most of the time. But he paid almost no attention to defense at all, and if you could force his team into turnovers and avoid giving up big plays you could sometimes neutralize his offense and could beat him. And as has been noted he typically played the weakest OOC schedule of any team in the Big 12 South.

Make no mistake, I absolutely do not want him coaching in the ACC. I was particularly concerned with the possibility of him going to Miami where he might be able to recruit better athletes almost by accident than he could get to come to Lubbock. I don't want him going to Clemson, either. I was pretty stoked about the possibility of him coming to Maryland just because of the buzz if nothing else.

But over the long term I believe Edsall will be a better hire for a number of reasons.

1) I think he will recruit more energetically than Leach. This is based on various media reports, before and after Edsall was hired more than anything else.

2) Edsall called Maryland his "dream job"; certainly that is not the case for Leach (or Malzahn or anyone else that may have been considered). It is more probable that Edsall will stick around long term than Leach or someone else would have.

3) Leach's offense scores a lot of points without requiring top notch athletes. That's all well and good but there are a lot of highly rated recruits in this area who would not want to be in his system since it is not known for getting guys into the NFL.

I have no doubt that at some point Mike Leach will be a head football coach again someplace, eventually at a BCS conference school. He may have to transition back by starting at some lesser place to rehabilitate his bad press from his firing, but once his lawsuits are resolved some school will hire him. I am confident that his teams will score lots of points and win most of their games. But - I don't believe that he is more likely to win a conference or BCS championship wherever he ends up than Edsall is to win at Maryland.

[brotherlo38]

Texas Tech put on two year probation.

The NCAA put Texas Tech on two years of probation Friday for a series of recruiting violations, saying 16 coaches or assistants sent nearly 1,000 impermissible text messages to football, softball and golf prospects.

--snip--

The football violations occurred between August 2007 and February 2009 under former coach Mike Leach, the NCAA said. Members of the football staff sent 234 text messages to 45 recruits, with Leach sending nine of them, according to the report compiled by the Division I Committee on Infractions.

Leach, who was fired in December 2009 amid allegations he mistreated a player suffering from a concussion, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press. He told the Finebaum Radio Network that his staff didn't break NCAA rules.

"I don't know anything about it," he said. "We never had more than a secondary violation when I was there."

The NCAA report quotes Leach as saying he never deliberately sent text messages to recruits and that all the messages from his phone were inadvertent because he didn't know, or pay attention to, who sent them.

[brotherlo38]

Back to what this thread was suppose to be about, Greg Gattuso of Pitt will be joining MD's staff as the DL coach. Seems like a good hire to me.

[brotherlo38]

David Walker, former Pitt RB coach, will take the same position with MD.