Maryland football coach Ralph Friedgen has stepped down and will accept a buyout for the final year of his contract, according to Inside Maryland Sports.com. The report fuels speculation that former Texas Tech coach Mike Leach will take over.
Attempts to reach Friedgen and Maryland athletic director Kevin Anderson were unsuccessful.
Friedgen has gone 74-50 and taken Maryland to seven bowl games in 10 seasons. He will remain on board to coach the Terps in the Military Bowl on Dec. 29, according to multiple sources.
Maryland’s first choice as a replacement appears to be Leach, who went 84-43 at Texas Tech, guiding the Red Raiders to 10 bowl games in as many seasons. Leach’s agent, Gary O’Hagan, said Saturday afternoon there had been no contact with his client and Maryland.
“Mike’s got his radio show, and he’s made it clear that he wants to get back into coaching,” was all O’Hagan would offer.
Vanderbilt’s hire on Friday of former Maryland coach-in-waiting James Franklin spurred the buyout offer. With Franklin’s salary off the books, along with the $1 million that he was guaranteed if he was not the Terps coach by January 2012, plus the anticipated departure of several assistants to join Franklin at Vanderbilt, it became economically feasible to scuttle Friedgen and start fresh.
It will be the first major move for new athletic director Anderson, who said last month that Friedgen would remain as coach in 2011. But that was with Franklin still in place as his designated successor.
Leach sat out this year after he was fired in December 2009 for alleged mistreatment of a player. Leach filed a suit last month against ESPN and a public relations firm, accusing them of libel and slander regarding the reporting of the incident that led to his departure from Texas Tech.
Leach has strong ties to former Maryland football player Kevin Plank, CEO of Under Armour, the athletic apparel company that outfits the Terps. In 2008, Plank, perhaps the most powerful member of Maryland’s Board of Trustees, signed a five-year, $11 million deal with Texas Tech to outfit the Red Raiders’ athletic programs.
If Maryland can lure Leach, 50, from his home in Key West, Fla., it would likely spur sagging ticket sales in College Park. Terps attendance has fallen for five straight years. Even in a stunning turnaround season from 2-10 in 2009 to 8-4 this season, Maryland averaged fewer than 40,000 fans for six home games, a drop from more than 44,000 per game in 2009.
It’s a trend that Leach, and his wide-open spread offense, would likely reverse. In 2008, the Red Raiders, led by quarterback Graham Harrell and wideout Michael Crabtree, reached No. 2 in the BCS standings before losing two of their final three games.
