Mike Burke
Cumberland Times-News
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University of Maryland head football coach Ralph Friedgen is thumbs up on the impending appointment of Wallace D. Loh as university president, calling the current University of Iowa executive vice president and provost “a heck of an addition.”
A heck of an addition? Um, Ralph, not to split hairs or take anything out of context here, which I am certain I am about to do, but uh, Mr. Loh is going to be quite a bit more than a heck of an addition to the University of Maryland. He’s going to be The Man at the University of Maryland. He’s going to be the boss — your boss Everybody’s boss.
He’s not the addition, Ralph; you’re the addition. You’re just the football coach, and I don’t mean “just the football coach” to be menial, because it certainly is not. But, you know, even though the football coach makes much more money than the university president does, last time I checked the university president does outrank the football coach. At least at non-Southeastern Conference schools anyway.
Yes, the football coach is the actual addition, but, sadly, given all Ralph Friedgen has done for the University of Maryland, unless he puts up at least a 7-spot under the W this season, he is likely to be the subtraction.
Nobody wants to see this happen, of course, at least nobody who remembers how insignificant Maryland football was before Fridge was hired by one Norman “Boomer” Esiason, who, along with several other former Terps quarterbacks who made it to the NFL (making them wealthy boosters for the university) “convinced” former athletic director Debbie Yow to sign on.
The Terps, coming off the 2-10 disaster of a year ago, will be improved this season, you can bet on that. Plus, they’ll have more experience, but it’s still going to be a very young team in College Park.
The Labor Day opener with Navy in Baltimore is huge on several fronts. For beginners, it’s Maryland-Navy, the only in-state big-time college football rivalry the state of Maryland can have. For another thing, it’s a game that can easily serve as an indicator as to which direction the Terps are headed. Should they play well and still lose, it wouldn’t be catastrophic, but should they get blown out by the Mids’ explosive offense it could be. Conversely, if Maryland can somehow win the game (Vegas has Navy the 6 1/2-point favorite), it could propel them to that winning season that not only Friedgen needs, but the entire university needs as well.
Yes, to paraphrase a certain dope from earlier in this column, it’s just football; but football pays the most bills at a university and the past few years Maryland has been bringing fewer and fewer fannies through the turnstiles at Byrd Stadium.
In 1988 when eventual national champion Notre Dame came to Baltimore’s Memorial Stadium to play Navy, in the week leading up to the game, Irish head coach Lou Holtz, the legendary poormouther unless it concerned his team’s next opponent, tried to convince the sporting public just how much trouble his No. 2-ranked Irish were going to have with Navy, even though Navy was in the midst of one of the worst runs in the academy’s football history.
“We’re going to have problems,” Holtz said amidst the giggles — no, belly laughs — in talking up the Midshipmen, outsized and overmatched. “What you have to understand is these are the young men who defend our country. Frankly, there’s nobody on our football team I would feel comfortable with defending our country.”
The Irish, even though they won 22-7, did have problems that day, perhaps because Holtz was teaching Tony Rice one of life’s lessons and didn’t play the starting quarterback all afternoon, although I will die convinced Holtz purposely kept Navy in the game that day to wake up his team.
Thankfully, the young men and women of the Naval Academy still defend our country, but the Navy football team, 10-4 last season and an easy bowl-game winner over Missouri, no longer needs to be talked up by anybody. Ask Notre Dame.
In fact, for all we know, the Midshipmen could be talking up the Terps these days for the same reason Holtz always talked them up.
Ralph Friedgen has certainly been talking up the Navy football team, but not the way Holtz did. He knows what he and his team are up against on Labor Day and he seems very eager to see how the Terps respond. In 2005 when last the teams met, Navy gave Maryland fits, even though Maryland prevailed, 23-20.
Friedgen won’t be satisfied if all the Terps can do is give Navy fits this time around, and neither will many Maryland boosters. Yet if that’s all the Terps can manage to accomplish, it could still be a step in the right direction.
Mike Burke is sports editor of the Cumberland Times-News. Write to him at mburke@times-news.com
