Randy Edsall’s first season fractured Maryland football; can he repair it?

[mattp]

This post needs more likes.

it doesn't get more likes because most of the opinions regarding Edsall were fabricated by Palatine. by far the most annoying part of thinking Edsall did a good job (which even Pal admits he did) was that i was constantly told that i love him, don't think anyone else could do the job and that i think he should be coach for life. i never heard one person say anything like any of that, expect Pal and a few others when attributing it to the "apologists". all i've heard people say was that he did a good job and probably a better job at building the program than most (that means more than 50%, not 99.9%, and when you consider 50% of coaches are probably fired in 3 years it's hard to argue that he didnt do a better job than most would). all the superlatives have come from Pal and his anti edsall cronies, not from the apologists

 

[Kingspoint]

Didn't mean my post to be a personal shot at KP, and my apologies if it read like one. Obviously Edsall continues to be a big topic on this board (people like to slow down to look at car wrecks) and the intent isn't to censor that talk, although I don't see anyone making a new point that will change anyone's mind on RE. Just thinking a sub-board for all things Edsall might work as well as the realignment one seems to be if you want to come here for UConn news and talk. For example, the FUCRE board could take all the latest Maryland transfer news, how Fridge was a better recruiter than Edsall, etc. etc. The Baltimore-Washington press is very aggressive and I suspect there's a lot more RE articles on the way.

Hey no offense taken ruskin. This board is chock full of peoples opinions so I understand. One thing I do know is that for the most part, people on this board can agree to disagree in a more civilized manner than the way they do it on some of the other boards I've read.

Just so you know, one of my New Year's resolutions is to not post anything more on FUCRE unless something really, really, really good comes along. I just hope I can keep that resolution better than one I made last year...to exercise more. Probably be a lot easier. SIGH!

 

[BlueMAB]

it doesn't get more likes because most of the opinions regarding Edsall were fabricated by Palatine. by far the most annoying part of thinking Edsall did a good job (which even Pal admits he did) was that i was constantly told that i love him, don't think anyone else could do the job and that i think he should be coach for life. i never heard one person say anything like any of that, expect Pal and a few others when attributing it to the "apologists". all i've heard people say was that he did a good job and probably a better job at building the program than most (that means more than 50%, not 99.9%, and when you consider 50% of coaches are probably fired in 3 years it's hard to argue that he didnt do a better job than most would). all the superlatives have come from Pal and his anti edsall cronies, not from the apologists

This post needs more likes.

 

[Carl Spackler]

Also, FYI - while I freely admit my memory isn't what it once was, I just checked w/ a source and in 1994, there was indeed talk of upgrading at that time, but it apparently did not get to official BOT vote, because the university senate (faculty, administration and student representation) at the time had a session and voted down the upgrade. What's interesting that I just reviewed, is that good old Lew, in that inital report on upgrading that he put together in 1991 on request from the administration, he strongly predicts that the 'upper tier' of college athletic conferences would be strongly motivated to form an independant tier of sports programs independant of the NCAA. He predicted that way back in 1991!

anyway - all of that's verifiable, if you want to look.

 

[ZooCougar]

Ok. I think you must be the MattP from another dimension. Because I don't remember any superlative in any of Palatine's posts.

Edsall definitely has his share of worshippers here. To say otherwise is ridiculous. There were even people here so confident in his abilities that they predicted Maryland would be in the ACCCG. "cough, cough Gars".

Good times.

it doesn't get more likes because most of the opinions regarding Edsall were fabricated by Palatine. by far the most annoying part of thinking Edsall did a good job (which even Pal admits he did) was that i was constantly told that i love him, don't think anyone else could do the job and that i think he should be coach for life. i never heard one person say anything like any of that, expect Pal and a few others when attributing it to the "apologists". all i've heard people say was that he did a good job and probably a better job at building the program than most (that means more than 50%, not 99.9%, and when you consider 50% of coaches are probably fired in 3 years it's hard to argue that he didnt do a better job than most would). all the superlatives have come from Pal and his anti edsall cronies, not from the apologists

 

[mattp]

Ok. I think you must be the MattP from another dimension. Because I don't remember any superlative in any of Palatine's posts.

Edsall definitely has his share of worshippers here. To say otherwise is ridiculous. There were even people here so confident in his abilities that they predicted Maryland would be in the ACCCG. "cough, cough Gars".

Good times.

he just said "I recall one poster saying he couldn't imagine or want anyone except Edsall as the UConn coach." which
is pretty close to a superlative. and to be fair they could still make the ACCCG while he's there. i think a lot of us that liked him came off as worshippers because we felt the need to defend some ridiculous comments made about him. personally i wouldn't have minded keeping him around for a long time b/c i thought we'd have a tough time getting a decent replacement (i thought we'd be looking at Whipple-type candidates, which we largely were) and because i was willing to settle for good. i didn't want to make a Cuse-esque move to fire a good coach and hire GRob. i think most "apologists" felt about the same. i don't think that makes me a worshipper, but some people seem to think so.

BTW i'm not from a different dimension, but i did travel here from the future, so it's similar

 

[TouchdownHusky]

BTW i'm not from a different dimension, but i did travel here from the future, so it's similar

Then you can tell us when RE was fired at Maryland . . . after '12? '13? 14? Come on it didn't last longer than that. No way. And was UConn asked to join the ACC by then?

 

[Palatine]

it doesn't get more likes because most of the opinions regarding Edsall were fabricated by Palatine.

First, I only cited one opinion. Second, there was a poster who titled his thread something very close to what I wrote. I didn't "fabricate" a thing. Period.

 

[mattp]

Then you can tell us when RE was fired at Maryland . . . after '12? '13? 14? Come on it didn't last longer than that. No way. And was UConn asked to join the ACC by then?

i should have specified i'm only from a week in the future

 

[mattp]

First, I only cited one opinion. Second, there was a poster who titled his thread something very close to what I wrote. I didn't "fabricate" a thing. Period.

anytime you refer to Edsall lovers or Edsall worshippers you're fabricating opinions, and i'm pretty sure you've done both several times. if not i apologize as i may be confusing you someone else

 

[Palatine]

anytime you refer to Edsall lovers or Edsall worshippers you're fabricating opinions, and i'm pretty sure you've done both several times. if not i apologize as i may be confusing you someone else

Have you ever read this board? There were numerous poster who thought that Edsall did as good a job as anyone could have. Exactly that opinion. That opinion by the way is a superlative because it implies no one could have done better. And was voiced by more than one poster.

 

[Jimmy Serrano]

Have you ever read this board? There were numerous poster who thought that Edsall did as good a job as anyone could have. Exactly that opinion. That opinion by the way is a superlative because it implies no one could have done better. And was voiced by more than one poster.

I'm calling BS on this. I don't recall one poster stating that.

That's your interpretation of what someone said defending Edsall from the ridiculous attacks.

 

[Carl Spackler]

Any coach we were to hire/retain at that time was going to be their goal.
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-8313847.html

That what was stated from the consultant from the SEC during and as an argument for the upgrade it. I believe it recides in the same article from which you quoted.

I didn't see this repsone before. I did admit my mistake, and I fully agree that Edsall may very well have been given the charge of building a competitive big east football program upon his hiring, based on the timing of events around the hire, but I still disagree that he was ever formally given that task upon his hiring, but none of us were actually in the room when he was hired. Lew Perkins most definitely did say "Here's the keys to the program, there's no owner's manual"...though.

But your dates are wrong, and I don't like when my memory gets tested like that so I"ve been digging for a little while to make sure I"m not cuckoo yet.

Feel free to check and see if any of this is wrong.

The big east invited UConn and Villanova to join the big east football in 1997, at a future date to be determined, conditional upon upgrading football to 1-A status. The BOT did not approve of an upgrade to 1-A until after that invite came in 1997, voting in favor in mid-october. The whole idea of the upgrade began in 1990-1991 when the big east was actually forming a football conference initially, and with the change in conference landscape at the time, there was worry about the future of the.... at the time, infant UConn basketball programs among the big boys, and on top of that, the academics at the university, that actually favored the upgrade (and there were very few), recognized that the largest public reserach universities in teh country, with the largest endowments, also happened to have 1-A football programs, but there was a big push AGAINST upgrading by the university faculty and administration.

It all started, when Perkins at the request of the university president and BOT, in his first few months on the job in 1990, was asked to put together a detailed report on upgrading from 1-AA to 1-A which was delivered back to the president and BOT in 1991. The entire concept never made it past public forum discussion stages until Rowland became governor in 1995 and started getting involved with pushing for state bonding and funding for facilities. The Oct. 1997 BOT vote established North Campus at the time to become the new stadium location. That set off the town of mansfield local government into a frenzy, the town of Mansfield eventually shot down the on campus facility by late 1998, and it took Rowland bundling Rentschler field into the Adrien's Landing state funding project of summer 2000 before an actual stadium capable of qualifying for D-1A standards was even funded.

The location of a stadium was completely in the air, as was funding, at the time, when Edsall was hired. Edsall was hired on 12/21/1998, pproximately 14 months after the upgrade was approved, and the school was still searching for both a location and funding for the stadium. The upgrade was very close to not happening, at the time Edsall was hired.

I think many would be surprised to know who else was interviewed for the job besides Edsall. Brad Childress, Kevin Gilbride, probably wanted more money than the university was willing to spend on a coach at that time of uncertainty.

Edsall did a great job for what was needed. We've enjoyed great success because of him. We also found ourselves with situation our program was in on Jan. 2, 2011 in ending the 2010 season and going into the 2011 season because of him.

That's all I've got to say on that.

 

[noeynox]

Plenty of posters expressed that sentiment.

There was also the fear that the next hire, if he was GROB like could set the program back to the trailer age.

 

[CAPS]

Randy needs to rewind Randy and listen! Man has become the new definition of the word egomaniac!

 

[whaler11]

Have you ever read this board? There were numerous poster who thought that Edsall did as good a job as anyone could have. Exactly that opinion. That opinion by the way is a superlative because it implies no one could have done better. And was voiced by more than one poster.

There is not a single person in the world who believes this. Zero. None. You and some others may have invented them and they sit on your shoulder like the Great Gazoo.... but no sentient being believes nor has stated what you claim above.

 

[ZooCougar]

There is not a single person in the world who believes this. Zero. None. You and some others may have invented them and they sit on your shoulder like the Great Gazoo.... but no sentient being believes nor has stated what you claim above.

Nonsense. The next time BusinessLawyer tells us that Craig James and company think Randy is great, then I'll reference this post.

 

[whaler11]

Nonsense. The next time BusinessLawyer tells us that Craig James and company think Randy is great, then I'll reference this post.

There are a lot of national media who think that Edsall did a good job at UConn. That is hardly the same thing as thinking that NO ONE could have been better. There are plenty of coaches who could/would have been better. This is a dumb argument even by Pal's standards - but I'll let him get back to chasing windmills and calling out people who don't exist.

 

[Duncan Idaho]

I didn't see this repsone before. I did admit my mistake, and I fully agree that Edsall may very well have been given the charge of building a competitive big east football program upon his hiring, based on the timing of events around the hire, but I still disagree that he was ever formally given that task upon his hiring, but none of us were actually in the room when he was hired. Lew Perkins most definitely did say "Here's the keys to the program, there's no owner's manual"...though.

But your dates are wrong, and I don't like when my memory gets tested like that so I"ve been digging for a little while to make sure I"m not cuckoo yet.

Feel free to check and see if any of this is wrong.

The big east invited UConn and Villanova to join the big east football in 1997, at a future date to be determined, conditional upon upgrading football to 1-A status. The BOT did not approve of an upgrade to 1-A until after that invite came in 1997, voting in favor in mid-october. The whole idea of the upgrade began in 1990-1991 when the big east was actually forming a football conference initially, and with the change in conference landscape at the time, there was worry about the future of the.... at the time, infant UConn basketball programs among the big boys, and on top of that, the academics at the university, that actually favored the upgrade (and there were very few), recognized that the largest public reserach universities in teh country, with the largest endowments, also happened to have 1-A football programs, but there was a big push AGAINST upgrading by the university faculty and administration.

It all started, when Perkins at the request of the university president and BOT, in his first few months on the job in 1990, was asked to put together a detailed report on upgrading from 1-AA to 1-A which was delivered back to the president and BOT in 1991. The entire concept never made it past public forum discussion stages until Rowland became governor in 1995 and started getting involved with pushing for state bonding and funding for facilities. The Oct. 1997 BOT vote established North Campus at the time to become the new stadium location. That set off the town of mansfield local government into a frenzy, the town of Mansfield eventually shot down the on campus facility by late 1998, and it took Rowland bundling Rentschler field into the Adrien's Landing state funding project of summer 2000 before an actual stadium capable of qualifying for D-1A standards was even funded.

The location of a stadium was completely in the air, as was funding, at the time, when Edsall was hired. Edsall was hired on 12/21/1998, pproximately 14 months after the upgrade was approved, and the school was still searching for both a location and funding for the stadium. The upgrade was very close to not happening, at the time Edsall was hired.

I think many would be surprised to know who else was interviewed for the job besides Edsall. Brad Childress, Kevin Gilbride, probably wanted more money than the university was willing to spend on a coach at that time of uncertainty.

Edsall did a great job for what was needed. We've enjoyed great success because of him. We also found ourselves with situation our program was in on Jan. 2, 2011 in ending the 2010 season and going into the 2011 season because of him.

That's all I've got to say on that.

Carl, I was researching the article and posted after you had already done so. my aplogies. The point I was trying to make was in mid 1990's Perkins got the go for a D1 program. he stated he wanted BCS and BE ASAP well before 2005. An appropriate sized stadium was needed to make the move . The on campus proposal failed. The 65k stadium in Hartford for the Pats was approved by the General Assembly before the Edsall hire. He thought he had his stadium. You dont hire or go into a endeavor this big with little or no expectations or goals. The SEC consultant(commissioner) told them that bulding a relatively competative D1 football program would be the most difficult in college sport but would be worthwhile to any school if successful. My take on the handing over the keys with no owners manual reference, is that there existed no template, model to follow because this was something that was never done before. ( a school going from D1AA to a BCS school. Being competative or mediocre is a fair and reasonable goal for the short term. I didnt agree with all the things Edsall did here but that goal was accomplished in my opinion. Now I want to move on to being good, very good then great. I think you are a great fan of UConn football, Carl and I'm a big fan of your postings.

 

[TouchdownHusky]

Funny to read the history - Perkins, 1997, Randy in the early years, Villanova & UConn getting invites to the BE. Sad part is UConn should have gone big time decades before. When Penn State was emerging and Syracuse was emerging, UConn should have been emerging (probably UMass as well). Unfortunately, small time New England thinking prevailed - that and the "wanna be just like the Ivy League" foolishness.

 

[noeynox]

There is not a single person in the world who believes this. Zero. None. You and some others may have invented them and they sit on your shoulder like the Great Gazoo.... but no sentient being believes nor has stated what you claim above.

A poster I happen to think is very fair and balanced suggested we should build a statue of Edsall outside The Rent, rather than question if he should be on the hot seat.

As far as national media goes, there were many among them who suggested the Packers were crazy for letting Bret Favre go for some kid, that while he may be good, is not likely to ever be Favre. Just because someone has a national forum doesn't always make them right and I know Edsall did do a good job here, but I think Palatine's point about Edsall not believing in UConn gets lost because people want to disagree with everything he says here. More than once Edsall went in the Media and insinuated that UConn fans had no right to have expectations because UConn "had no history." P or no one that comes after will have the same job security that Edsall did here and that is a GOOD thing. No one should be allowed to cash seven figure paychecks and at the same time talk about there "shouldn't be any expectations". Edsall was a fat cat here at UConn, that could blast the media, fans, players, etc here, without any residual blow back. He has found a totally different reality at his new gig. Expectations are a good thing, unless you're Randy Edsall.

 

[TouchdownHusky]

Simple really. Randy Edsall did do a terrific job of getting UConn from 1-AA to 1-A. He was there during the early years and probably sped up the "growing curve".

But his "ship" started taking on water when he did not (or could not) recruit a worthy successor to Dan Orlovsky. Since Dan left after the '04 season, this key position has been mediorce (at best) to outright poor. The WR corp soon followed the same path. And utimately the offense's became somewhere between boring and ineffective with precious few glimnces of excitement and success (last half of '09 for example).

Randy managed to keep it afloat with solid running, a mauling OL and an adequate (sometimes outstanding) defense. These players can more often be found in the "under-the-radar" department. RE deserves credit for finding enough of them and coaching them up.

All in all though Randy took UConn as far as he could. There are only so many OL, so many LBs and so many Safety's you can recruit. At some point you gotta land the Aaron Hernandez's of High School football because signing two, three or four other lesser TE's isn't gonna make up the difference.

 

[mattp]

Nonsense. The next time BusinessLawyer tells us that Craig James and company think Randy is great, then I'll reference this post.

so craig james saying he's great is the same as saying nobody could have done a better job? you must have some real difficulty with comparisons and a sense of perspective if you think those two statements are even close. i'm pretty sure even Craig James would think Urban Meyer and probably more than a dozen or twenty others could have done a better job. now whether we had a shot in hell of getting those dozen plus guys is a different matter

 

[Palatine]

I'm calling BS on this. I don't recall one poster stating that.

That's your interpretation of what someone said defending Edsall from the ridiculous attacks.

Please do not blame me for your faulty memory. These types of statements were made by posters numerous times.

 

[Carl Spackler]

Carl, I was researching the article and posted after you had already done so. my aplogies. The point I was trying to make was in mid 1990's Perkins got the go for a D1 program. he stated he wanted BCS and BE ASAP well before 2005. An appropriate sized stadium was needed to make the move . The on campus proposal failed. The 65k stadium in Hartford for the Pats was approved by the General Assembly before the Edsall hire. He thought he had his stadium. You dont hire or go into a endeavor this big with little or no expectations or goals. The SEC consultant(commissioner) told them that bulding a relatively competative D1 football program would be the most difficult in college sport but would be worthwhile to any school if successful. My take on the handing over the keys with no owners manual reference, is that there existed no template, model to follow because this was something that was never done before. ( a school going from D1AA to a BCS school. Being competative or mediocre is a fair and reasonable goal for the short term. I didnt agree with all the things Edsall did here but that goal was accomplished in my opinion. Now I want to move on to being good, very good then great. I think you are a great fan of UConn football, Carl and I'm a big fan of your postings.

True. The whole Patriots and Bob Kraft/Rowland relationship and flirtation with bringing the Patsy's to Hartford played a big role in the d-1A upgrade discussions in the early 90s, but it initally all began independant of each other. The money that was going to go to building an NFL venue (which would have seated approx 65k) - although I think it was proposed to actually be in downtown hartford right near the intersection of 84 and 91, that also became the site where it was proposed that the d-1A Huskies were to play football - after the on campus stadium proposal was shut down. The money approved by the GA for construction of that NFL facility went away for good in late 1999, and at the same time, actually a year earlier, the town of mansfield, through lobbying the state government, among other tactics, effectively shut down the possibility of an on campus football stadium. So, even though the BOT had approved the upgrade in 1997, and there was a goal to play in the big east in the early 2000s, the upgrade was dead in the water as of new years day in 2000. Y2K. There were no plans to build a division 1-A stadium and no funding for a stadium at that time, 2 years into Edsall's tenure.

In the initial proposals, there were three sites that were looked at to build a d-1A football facility. Two were on campus, and the third was Rentschler. Rentschler was the least desireable option of the three. John Rowland didn't give up though. He pushed the Rentschler field money through the state GA attached to the vote for the Adrien's landing project that went through the Assembly in late spring/summer 2000. When the adrien's landing vote passed, that's then the d-1A upgrade finally became a reality. Summer 2000. 11 years ago. John Rowland deserves more credit for upgrading the UConn program to d-1A than any coach or university staff member past or present does.

What's also interesting, to note, regrading our football facilities, is that Shenkman and Burton, is that the vast majority of the money that was put into those two facilities, I think $35 million or so, came from UCONN 2000 program (Not sure what the actual name of the program was, I think uconn 2000) money also pushed through the state assembly by Rowland. THere were millions and millions of dollars earmarked for upgrading all of the buildings and infrastructure set aside by the state.

THe money that was used to build Shenkman and Burton, most of it came from money set aside in the multimillion dollar, maybe billion dollar plan, the money was set aside for use by on-campus recreation, intramurals, and stuff like that. To this day, I believe that when the football team is not using the facility, it should be open to the students for general use and intramurals because of that.

Shenkman and Burton donated a tone of money, millions, but it was a fraction of the total construction cost. Edsall was given an integral say in what and how he wanted things built.