General

It Doesn’t Matter Who You Root For: At Least It’s Not Maryland

Nov 25, 2009, 7:22 PM UTC

â†µ You may not have noticed which team is idling around the ACC cellarâ†µlooking for someone to put it out of its misery, but it's not Duke thisâ†µyear. Duke is sort of competitive, actually. It's weird, and should putâ†µthis into perspective: Ole Miss fired David Cutcliffe so they could hireâ†µEd Orgeron. â†µ

â†µâ†µAnyway, back to the grim ACC cellar: it is occupied by Maryland, aâ†µteam that’s lost to Middle Tennessee State two years running. You mayâ†µremember Maryland winning a bowl game to go 8-5 last year or scrapingâ†µinto a bowl game at 6-6 the year before that, but those teams wereâ†µremarkable shambling piles of incompetence that somehow scraped upâ†µenough wins despite being statistically horrendous. Maryland was belowâ†µaverage in ever single major statistical category except scoring defense lastâ†µyear and still managed to win eightâ†µgames.â†µ

â†µâ†µRalph Friedgen is an old hand at 62 who’s had his day in the sunâ†µwith the Terps but is now driving them straight into the ground. Heâ†µprobably doesn’t have the energy anymore to keep up the frenetic pace requiredâ†µto be a major college football coach. Looks like we’ll have anotherâ†µhead to add to the dead pile-â†µ

â†µâ†µâ‡¥A buyout of any sort - even in the form of a loan from the school’sâ†µâ‡¥endowment - would raise questions in the current economic climate, saidâ†µâ‡¥former U.S. Rep. Tom McMillen....â†µâ‡¥
â†µâ‡¥
â†µâ‡¥“As a normal practice we don’t get involved in theâ†µâ‡¥day-to-day,” said McMillen.... “But as a fiduciary, to take onâ†µâ‡¥aâ†µâ‡¥$4 million liability plus hiring a new coach? Given the economic timesâ†µâ‡¥we’re in, there would have to be an awfully compelling case.”â†µâ†µâ†µHuh, that’s a new one. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a a coach notâ†µgetting fired because it was too expensive. Maybe there is something toâ†µthis so-called “global financial meltdown” after all. â†µ

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â†µAnd with that, Maryland may be the BCS program in the worst shape forâ†µthe next five years. Friedgen is a zombie coach, dead but stillâ†µambulatory, until such time as his buyout descends to a level thatâ†µMaryland can pay. Unless the Terps can scrape together the dough toâ†µreplace Fridge, they're going to have to endure one or two fullâ†µrecruiting cycles during which players know full well that the guyâ†µthey're signing up to play for will not be there for more than a year orâ†µtwo. They're going to have to put up with a coaching staff that'sâ†µspiraled towards ineptness, and once the two-to-three total bomb recruiting classes get a death grip on the program, some other guy isâ†µgoing to have to come in and attempt to right the ship. â†µ

â†µâ†µThat sounds like a guaranteed decade of misery. Even Washington Stateâ†µhas hope for 2018. â†µ

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This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.

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