As a die hard and loyal Mayland Terp I would like to add a few points about the state of the Maryland football program.
Joe Paterno was considered done back in the early part of the decade. Penn State had posted several losing seasons in a row and Ralph Friedgen was actually out recruiting Jo Pa from 2002-2004. The alum stuck with Jo Pa after he gave himself a cold hard slap in the face, took responsibility for not changing with the times and delegated more authority in terms of recruiting and play calling. As a result, PSU is a national power once again. Let me simply say that Ralph has as earned a mulligan for all he has done, however, he needs to do what Jo Pa did in terms of recruiting and he has to want to coach. I question really whether or not Ralph wants to continue.
Having defended Ralph, let me now be critical of him and present to you what I felt went wrong:
First of all Ralph brought college football back to College Park in 2001 Not only did the program win 10 in 2001, 11 in 2002 and 10 in 2003, the University invested to make Byrd Stadium a state of the art college football stadium and they have. In addition to his success on the field and the commitment to Byrd Stadium’s renovations and upgraded practice facilities, Ralph also had the advantage of Penn State’s decline and more importantly the history of the Terps of always having been able to recruit top flight quarterbacks the past three decades to College Park, Avellini, Manges, Dick, Boomer, Reich, O’Donnell, Zolak Hill an McBrien. With this history, the three winning seasons and the commitment to football by AD Debbie Yow, the men’s basketball team goes to two Final Fours and win’s the national title the same year Ralph takes his squad to the Orange Bowl.
So, one will ask, why all of sudden do top flight quarterbacks stop coming to Maryland as well as top recruits? The answer is two-fold and they rest entirely on Ralph Friedgen. His personality in the recruiting process has turned off not only players but local area coaches. I have my share of stories on several recruits that their dream was to play at Maryland, only to change their minds after meeting with Ralph. Secondly, this escalated after the 2005 season and it is perhaps the most under rated story as to what went wrong, In 2005, the Terps finished 5-6 and Coach Friedgen publicly blamed Junior QB Stan Hollenbach for the team not making it to a bowl. That story reverberated to every coach and recruit in the metro area. Even though Hollenbach led the Terps to a successful season the next year, the damage was done in terms of recruiting. Players do not want to to play for a coach who will leave them out to dry publicly for the team’s misfortunes. More importantly local coaches do not want their kids playing in that environment.
