Coach showed soft side after ’09 win over Irish Late in his tenure, there were moments in nearly every news conference when former Maryland coach Ralph Friedgen’s voice would crack and his eyes would mist as he answered his critics or talked about one of his beloved seniors.
By comparison, Friedgen’s successor Randy Edsall has been a blank slate, showing some fire, but otherwise little emotion.
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Two years ago, however, after a 33-30 double-overtime victory at Notre Dame, Edsall’s icy demeanor melted away in an impassioned postgame interview on network television. It was the Huskies’ first victory since the stabbing death of senior cornerback Jasper Howard.
| Up Next |
| Maryland vs. Notre Dame |
| When » Saturday, 7:30 p.m. |
| Where » FedEx Field |
| TV » NBC |
“No. 6 is up there,” Edsall said, blinking away tears as he pointed to the sky. “He prayed for us today and he got it. Jazz this one’s for you. God dang.”
No reasonable comparison can be made between what Edsall felt that day in South Bend and where his emotions will be Saturday at FedEx Field when Maryland (2-7) faces Notre Dame (6-3). But after five straight losses have brought Edsall under fire in his first season in College Park, there is a cloud over the program that can begin to dissipate with a victory.
It would also help alleviate some of the pressure on the embattled Edsall. On Tuesday, he expressed some exasperation with the media and fans. Two days earlier, answering a question about the difficulties of this season, Edsall talked of being through tough times as coach at Division-I startup UConn and as an assistant at NFL expansion team Jacksonville.
His comments were interpreted as a comparison between the situations he faced entering the three jobs.
“There’s things that I say that kind of get taken out of context,” Edsall said. “When I went into that situation [at UConn], you had a team that was 10-2, coming off going to the [Division I-AA] playoffs for the first time in school history. Expectations were very high. And there were variables there — they lost 25 players, some really good players, and some other issues there.”
Edsall went 4-7 that first season in Storrs, UConn’s final year in Division I-AA, before moving up a level.
Taking over a 9-4 team at Maryland, Edsall faced similar high expectations. But the graduation of 18 players, the offseason departure of 12 more with eligibility left, and injuries to several starters, including five that were season-enders, have made Edsall’s job much more challenging.
Now comes Notre Dame and another chance for a turnaround.
“It was a great victory for the Connecticut team at that time. We as a team had been through a lot,” Edsall said. “It was a group of young men who believed in each other and with everything that was going on went out there and played a tremendous game.”
