Terps coach will remain through Military Bowl
Maryland athletic director Kevin Anderson stood at a podium inside Comcast Center on Monday explaining why he fired football coach Ralph Friedgen.
“This was a good football team and I believe it can be great,” Anderson said. “So we’re going to bring the best person in here to get to that greatness and sustain it.”
Friedgen, who refused a buyout in exchange for his resignation, will receive $2 million for the final year of his contract. He will remain with the team through the Dec. 29 Military Bowl. In 10 seasons, Friedgen has a record of 74-50 and delivered the Terps seven bowl games.
Anderson said he will assemble a search committee and hire a headhunting firm to help identify candidates. Texas Tech coach Mike Leach is believed to be the frontrunner.
“There’s no leading candidate,” Anderson said. “I do have a list and Mike Leach is on that list … I have several other people on that list too. We haven’t made any final decisions on how we will move forward.”
According to Anderson, he considered offering a contract extension to Friedgen, but decided against it, even after Friedgen guided the Terps to an 8-4 record and won his second ACC coach of the year award.
Last month Anderson announced that Friedgen would be back in 2011, but the circumstances changed on Thursday when Vanderbilt hired Terps offensive coordinator and coach-in-waiting James Franklin.
The night before, Anderson met with Friedgen and informed him he would not coach in 2011.
“He said he understood,” Anderson said. “We were going to sit down Friday and determine what kind of exit strategy we would have. But somewhere between Wednesday and Friday, that never materialized. I can’t tell you what happened, but I gather he had a change of heart.”
Anderson and new school president Wallace Loh emphasized that their decision was shaped by a big-picture vision of the program and the university. They want to transform Maryland in every aspect, athletics included.
“We’re going to take good programs to a higher level, high programs to the highest level,” said Loh, formerly the provost at Iowa.
Acquiring a coach who can outperform Friedgen and steer free of controversy will be a challenge. Drawing new fans in a cosmopolitan city with little taste for local college football will be another. Perhaps the most difficult task would be retaining a coach who could accomplish all of the above.
“I had to make a decision about what is best for Maryland athletics for the long term and not just the next year or two,” Anderson said. “I now need to hire someone who can excite the fan base and take this program to the next level.”
