The single biggest failure of HCREII was his failure to do better in his first year here. He had a QB and a defensive core who had been mediocre enough to get to 6-6 two years earlier. He took everything apart to rebuild it, rather than coming in asking if with some luck he could get back to 6-6. Criticism that he didn't do better that year is spot one. But, when we hired him, we knew from his track record here and at Maryland that he was going to rebuild the program from the ground up, and not look to put it off trying to sneak into a bowl in year one. So we got what the school elected.
The last two years have been a disaster, this one obviously much less so than last year. Either you think Edsall is the worst coach in the history of college football, which I think is nuts given what he did here the first time, or you conclude that once the last P recruits moved on Diaco didn't leave us with players with which he could compete and we weren't going to be competitive. I believe the latter. To be clear, I'm not saying that a more innovative coach couldn't have stolen one or two more wins each year. That is always possible when you aren't winning games you have a shot at. But in terms of how the rebuild is going, as a long term matter, ask me after next year. At the moment, I'm willing to say the results have (obviously) been unacceptable, but the jury is out on whether the long term prognosis is o.k.
That having been said, I still fear that life as an independent leaves mediocrity as ceiling. If fans want the cieling to be better, buy tickets so we have more excitement to show recruits and more money to hire coaches with.
