http://maryland.247sports.com/Artic...to-Fire-Randy-Edsall-During-Bye-Week-40044257
BREAKING: Maryland to Fire Randy Edsall
Jeff Ermann -
Randy Edsall is unlikely to survive as Maryland's football coach past this weekend's game against Ohio State, multiple sources close to the situation told InsideMDSports. Barring an unexpected last-minute reversal, Maryland will part ways with Edsall when the floundering Terps enter their mid-season bye week.
With the team off to a miserable start, fans revolting and boosters withholding donations, Maryland athletics officials are expected to move forward with their plan to fire Edsall, 57, in the fifth year of his original six-year, $10 million contract, and name interim head coach -- perhaps offensive coordinator Mike Locksley -- before eventually hiring a replacement to revive the struggling program.
Edsall's contract was extended for three years in June -- a move aimed at stabilizing his public standing, especially with high school recruits -- but just $500,000 of the $7.5 million was guaranteed money; by firing Edsall before his original deal ends Jan. 15, 2017, the school will have to pay him for the remainder of this season and an additional $2.6 million: $2.1 million for next year's salary and that half-million buyout.
The athletic department will absorb that financial blow, multiple reliable sources told IMS, to cut its losses on the field, in the ticket office and in its fundraising efforts. Already on shaky ground entering this season, Edsall also has fallen under a hailstorm of criticism from fans and media during a 2-3 start during which his team's three losses have come by an average score of 40 to 11. Most damning, though, multiple sources said players have begun tuning him out.
"Nobody in the locker room would leave next year because Edsall is fired," one source told IMS. "He doesn't have too many fans left in the locker room."
While Maryland's basketball program has made major strides this year under coach Mark Turgeon, the football program has seen a late-season collapse last year continue during an embarrassing start this season. After blowing a 25-point lead on senior day against Rutgers -- a comeback engineered by then-Rutgers offensive coordinator Ralph Friedgen, the man Maryland athletics director Kevin Anderson fired before hiring Edsall -- the Terps' bowl prospects were suddenly diminished and they accepted a bid to play Stanford in the Foster Farms Bowl.
They suffered a lopsided 45-21 loss to the Cardinal, and a season that began with a 5-2 start finished at 7-6, including the Rutgers collapse and four losses by 20-plus points. Suddenly, sources said, what looked poised to be amicable contract negotiations became contentious; but both sides knew Edsall would be viewed as a lame duck with only two seasons left on his contract, so after several months of Edsall seeking more security they settled on the easily-terminated extension.
Then came fall camp, during which Maryland's coaches struggled to find a starting quarterback and players privately grumbled about his choice of junior Perry Hills, sources told IMS. With three different quarterbacks playing at varying levels of ineffectiveness in their first four games, the Terps have struggled to a 2-2 start, including a 21-point home upset against Bowling Green of the Mid-American Conference, a non-competitive 45-6 loss to border rival West Virginia on national TV and a 28-0 loss at a Byrd Stadium packed with visiting Wolverines fans.
A contingency plan in case of the sort of downward spiral that's unfolded had been put in place during the offseason. After the WVU game -- 14th time his Maryland teams have lost by 20 points or more -- Anderson received nearly 500 emails urging him to fire Edsall, a source told IMS, and the wheels began to spin faster toward activating that plan to part ways with Edsall. While on paper, his 2016 recruiting class is his best yet and features a potential star in quarterback Dwayne Haskins, those players aren't officially bound to Maryland until they sign National Letters of Intent next February.
Once-popular sentiment in favor of retaining Edsall and giving him a chance to reverse his fortunes -- he's got a 22-33 record at Maryland, including an 0-11 mark against top-25 teams, with average losing margin of more than 23 points in those games -- with those incoming players and a new facility was erased by the embarrassing start and overwhelming disapproval from fans and boosters. Maryland's received an attendance boost from fans of visiting Big Ten teams last season and against Michigan this year, but support has dwindled as Edsall's lost three of every five games he's coached at the school -- including an inordinate number of lopsided losses during his tenure.
Maryland's fan base, unlike some of its Big Ten counterparts and those in football-religious fanbases of the Southeastern Conference, doesn't include a massive base of big-money football boosters, especially during times when the product is poor. Still in the process of raising funds for its $155-million football facility, low booster morale was making it difficult for the school's fundraisers to elicit donations. With this year's team looking like it will struggle through the remainder of the season, negativity mounting and players grumbling, Maryland officials decided the situation was untenable and accelerated their plan to remove Edsall.
"No donor I know is happy," one source told IMS after Maryland gave up 42 second-half points in a 48-27 loss to Bowling Green on Sept. 12. "None of them were happy with the game, Edsall, or the direction of the program. Haskins may well save his job for this year, but no donor I know is happy."
Maryland's team held a players-only meeting prior to the Michigan loss and intentionally kept Edsall out of the loop, resulting in his admission he was unaware of the meeting. The message, per sources, was to play for pride against Michigan, but it wasn't a rally to save their coach's job.
"It was, 'It may be his program but it's our team," a source with knowledge of the meeting told IMS.
Four months after Anderson was hired to hired to replace former athletic director Debbie Yow, he hired Edsall in Jan. 2011, calling it an effort to go "from good to great." He had fired Friedgen, who was a Maryland alum and one of the most successful coaches in the program's history but also an aging coach approaching the end of his contract, with diminishing recent win-loss results. Maryland first targeted former Texas Tech coach Mike Leach, but he was later deemed too controversial a personality to hire. Maryland also flirted with June Jones, Rich Rodriguez and Gus Malzahn before tabbing Edsall -- then coming off his banner season at UConn, an 8-5 campaign capped by a 48-20 loss to Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl.
Edsall, a Syracuse alum who grew up in Pennsylvania, called Maryland his "dream job" in his introductory press conference. But his first season was nightmarish, with numerous players opting to leave rather than play for him, and the team finishing 2-10. The Terps went 4-8 the following year, and grumbling grew loud before a 7-6 season in 2013-2014 quieted critics at least partially. Despite the collapse of late 2014, Maryland had its first win over Penn State in 53 years, another win at Michigan and a respectable rookie year in the Big Ten.
Off the field, he'd also earned praise for improving the program's academic standing and avoiding off-field issues -- along with the aforementioned recruiting class next to arrive next year. And for the most part, sources said, the current players like Edsall personally. But he lost their support with his program-wide rigidness -- at times he's taken names off jerseys and banned baseball caps, 'do' rags, untrimmed facial hair and earrings in efforts to stifle selfish individualism -- along with his refusal to play more aggressively and tendency to blame them for losses.
Barring a last-minute reversal of plans, now they'll play the rest of their season -- and their careers -- for someone else.
Maryland officials will begin working soon to identify and pursue potential hires, and it's believed that the school's got a more attractive job to offer than it did when it hired Edsall; that state-of-the-art facility is scheduled to open in 2017, the program's national profile and revenues are significantly higher now because of its move to the Big Ten, and partner Under Armour's branding has continued grown significantly since then.
Maryland hasn't made any official statement regarding Edsall's status, who said Tuesday he he wasn't feeling any pressure to save his job. There's appeared to be an increased emphasis recently on the academics and off-field development of his players off the field in his recent comments and via the program's social media accounts.
"The number one thing is to make our kids better," Edsall said Tuesday, perhaps already knowing his fate. "That's the thing that I'll always just focus on. My job is to make them better on the field, make them better in the classroom and make them better as people. And that's the total focus that we have."
BREAKING: Maryland to Fire Randy Edsall
Jeff Ermann -
Randy Edsall is unlikely to survive as Maryland's football coach past this weekend's game against Ohio State, multiple sources close to the situation told InsideMDSports. Barring an unexpected last-minute reversal, Maryland will part ways with Edsall when the floundering Terps enter their mid-season bye week.
With the team off to a miserable start, fans revolting and boosters withholding donations, Maryland athletics officials are expected to move forward with their plan to fire Edsall, 57, in the fifth year of his original six-year, $10 million contract, and name interim head coach -- perhaps offensive coordinator Mike Locksley -- before eventually hiring a replacement to revive the struggling program.
Edsall's contract was extended for three years in June -- a move aimed at stabilizing his public standing, especially with high school recruits -- but just $500,000 of the $7.5 million was guaranteed money; by firing Edsall before his original deal ends Jan. 15, 2017, the school will have to pay him for the remainder of this season and an additional $2.6 million: $2.1 million for next year's salary and that half-million buyout.
The athletic department will absorb that financial blow, multiple reliable sources told IMS, to cut its losses on the field, in the ticket office and in its fundraising efforts. Already on shaky ground entering this season, Edsall also has fallen under a hailstorm of criticism from fans and media during a 2-3 start during which his team's three losses have come by an average score of 40 to 11. Most damning, though, multiple sources said players have begun tuning him out.
"Nobody in the locker room would leave next year because Edsall is fired," one source told IMS. "He doesn't have too many fans left in the locker room."
While Maryland's basketball program has made major strides this year under coach Mark Turgeon, the football program has seen a late-season collapse last year continue during an embarrassing start this season. After blowing a 25-point lead on senior day against Rutgers -- a comeback engineered by then-Rutgers offensive coordinator Ralph Friedgen, the man Maryland athletics director Kevin Anderson fired before hiring Edsall -- the Terps' bowl prospects were suddenly diminished and they accepted a bid to play Stanford in the Foster Farms Bowl.
They suffered a lopsided 45-21 loss to the Cardinal, and a season that began with a 5-2 start finished at 7-6, including the Rutgers collapse and four losses by 20-plus points. Suddenly, sources said, what looked poised to be amicable contract negotiations became contentious; but both sides knew Edsall would be viewed as a lame duck with only two seasons left on his contract, so after several months of Edsall seeking more security they settled on the easily-terminated extension.
Then came fall camp, during which Maryland's coaches struggled to find a starting quarterback and players privately grumbled about his choice of junior Perry Hills, sources told IMS. With three different quarterbacks playing at varying levels of ineffectiveness in their first four games, the Terps have struggled to a 2-2 start, including a 21-point home upset against Bowling Green of the Mid-American Conference, a non-competitive 45-6 loss to border rival West Virginia on national TV and a 28-0 loss at a Byrd Stadium packed with visiting Wolverines fans.
A contingency plan in case of the sort of downward spiral that's unfolded had been put in place during the offseason. After the WVU game -- 14th time his Maryland teams have lost by 20 points or more -- Anderson received nearly 500 emails urging him to fire Edsall, a source told IMS, and the wheels began to spin faster toward activating that plan to part ways with Edsall. While on paper, his 2016 recruiting class is his best yet and features a potential star in quarterback Dwayne Haskins, those players aren't officially bound to Maryland until they sign National Letters of Intent next February.
Once-popular sentiment in favor of retaining Edsall and giving him a chance to reverse his fortunes -- he's got a 22-33 record at Maryland, including an 0-11 mark against top-25 teams, with average losing margin of more than 23 points in those games -- with those incoming players and a new facility was erased by the embarrassing start and overwhelming disapproval from fans and boosters. Maryland's received an attendance boost from fans of visiting Big Ten teams last season and against Michigan this year, but support has dwindled as Edsall's lost three of every five games he's coached at the school -- including an inordinate number of lopsided losses during his tenure.
Maryland's fan base, unlike some of its Big Ten counterparts and those in football-religious fanbases of the Southeastern Conference, doesn't include a massive base of big-money football boosters, especially during times when the product is poor. Still in the process of raising funds for its $155-million football facility, low booster morale was making it difficult for the school's fundraisers to elicit donations. With this year's team looking like it will struggle through the remainder of the season, negativity mounting and players grumbling, Maryland officials decided the situation was untenable and accelerated their plan to remove Edsall.
"No donor I know is happy," one source told IMS after Maryland gave up 42 second-half points in a 48-27 loss to Bowling Green on Sept. 12. "None of them were happy with the game, Edsall, or the direction of the program. Haskins may well save his job for this year, but no donor I know is happy."
Maryland's team held a players-only meeting prior to the Michigan loss and intentionally kept Edsall out of the loop, resulting in his admission he was unaware of the meeting. The message, per sources, was to play for pride against Michigan, but it wasn't a rally to save their coach's job.
"It was, 'It may be his program but it's our team," a source with knowledge of the meeting told IMS.
Four months after Anderson was hired to hired to replace former athletic director Debbie Yow, he hired Edsall in Jan. 2011, calling it an effort to go "from good to great." He had fired Friedgen, who was a Maryland alum and one of the most successful coaches in the program's history but also an aging coach approaching the end of his contract, with diminishing recent win-loss results. Maryland first targeted former Texas Tech coach Mike Leach, but he was later deemed too controversial a personality to hire. Maryland also flirted with June Jones, Rich Rodriguez and Gus Malzahn before tabbing Edsall -- then coming off his banner season at UConn, an 8-5 campaign capped by a 48-20 loss to Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl.
Edsall, a Syracuse alum who grew up in Pennsylvania, called Maryland his "dream job" in his introductory press conference. But his first season was nightmarish, with numerous players opting to leave rather than play for him, and the team finishing 2-10. The Terps went 4-8 the following year, and grumbling grew loud before a 7-6 season in 2013-2014 quieted critics at least partially. Despite the collapse of late 2014, Maryland had its first win over Penn State in 53 years, another win at Michigan and a respectable rookie year in the Big Ten.
Off the field, he'd also earned praise for improving the program's academic standing and avoiding off-field issues -- along with the aforementioned recruiting class next to arrive next year. And for the most part, sources said, the current players like Edsall personally. But he lost their support with his program-wide rigidness -- at times he's taken names off jerseys and banned baseball caps, 'do' rags, untrimmed facial hair and earrings in efforts to stifle selfish individualism -- along with his refusal to play more aggressively and tendency to blame them for losses.
Barring a last-minute reversal of plans, now they'll play the rest of their season -- and their careers -- for someone else.
Maryland officials will begin working soon to identify and pursue potential hires, and it's believed that the school's got a more attractive job to offer than it did when it hired Edsall; that state-of-the-art facility is scheduled to open in 2017, the program's national profile and revenues are significantly higher now because of its move to the Big Ten, and partner Under Armour's branding has continued grown significantly since then.
Maryland hasn't made any official statement regarding Edsall's status, who said Tuesday he he wasn't feeling any pressure to save his job. There's appeared to be an increased emphasis recently on the academics and off-field development of his players off the field in his recent comments and via the program's social media accounts.
"The number one thing is to make our kids better," Edsall said Tuesday, perhaps already knowing his fate. "That's the thing that I'll always just focus on. My job is to make them better on the field, make them better in the classroom and make them better as people. And that's the total focus that we have."
