Jan. 3, 2011
COLLEGE PARK, Md. -
Randy Edsall was introduced as Maryland's 34th head football coach by director of athletics Kevin Anderson Monday during a news conference at the Gossett Team House.
Anderson's Opening Statement
"First off I would like to bid everyone a good afternoon, and thank you for coming. I want to welcome Eileen, Lexi and Corey (Edsall) to the Terp family. It's a great day to be a Terp. I want to thank my staff, the search committee, Dr. (Wallace) Loh and Chancellor (Brit) Kirwan for participating in this widespread search and coming up with our newest head football coach
Randy Edsall.
"I'd like to take a little bit of time and thank Ralph Friedgen. Ralph did a tremendous job and is a great Terp. The season and the bowl win speak for themselves. I'd like to thank him for everything he has done because he has truly laid the foundation for why we are here today and passing on the baton to Coach Edsall.
"On December 20 we launched a national search and today I want to introduce to you Randy Edsall our new head football coach at the University of Maryland. I'd like to make a few comments that the search committee and Dr. Loh gave me input and Chancellor Korwin was not involved in this search in any way possible. This was my decision and my choice to be the next head football coach.
"Here is the reason why. At West Point, I was able to follow Randy's career. I knew him before that when I was at Oregon State and I had the opportunity to go to a couple of golf tournaments and I was in an area to hear him speak to other coaches. At that time he stood out first and foremost to me. Then I was able to look at his body of work and it speaks for itself. Trust me that I was at the losing end of a couple of times of what he has put together at the University of Connecticut. What really brought things home though is that Randy is not just another football coach. It came to my attention from a close friend of mine, who is involved in the football world and has been a mentor to me for a long period of time; he told me that Randy told him that the University of Maryland head football coaching job was his dream job. In his career as being a coach, Randy wanted to be the coach at the University of Maryland. Now I can share this with you, and I won't share much of what went on in the search process, there was no one who came forward and said I want to be the head football coach at the University of Maryland and that's my dream job but Randy Edsall. I might be stealing some of his thunder but it is impressive to me when I finally was able to talk to him and he said that he grew up a Maryland football fan, as a youth he attended (former Maryland coach) Lefty Driesell's basketball camp. He has been a Terp for a long period of time even though he got sidetracked and went up to Syracuse for a couple of years.
"But here is an important fact and something that resonated with me before I was able to meet with Randy, and I think that each and everyone of you will be able to leave this room being impressed with who he is, Randy has won at all levels. He built a program from scratch but he's just not a football coach and I have talked about this before and I will talk about it today that I had to make a hard decision when we decided to make a change. We know that we are good but we want to be great and take this football program to another level, that's why Randy is sitting here, because his body of work can do that. With the Jacksonville Jaguars, an expansion team, in three years they went to the AFC Championship game and Randy was a defensive backs coach. The bigger thing today is that nobody in the history of college football team has taken a FCS team and gone to a BCS bowl game in seven years. This man is a builder and a champion. We have talked about the person and Randy's body of work speaks for itself in the classroom. Five out of the last seven years, Randy's (teams) have been acknowledged by the American Football Coaches Association for having top graduation rates. The other impressive statistic was that in 2007 he had the highest graduation rate among African-American's from state schools which played in a bowl game. That is a tremendous feat lady and gentlemen.
"But let's talk about some other things that he has done. Randy has had to deal with tragedy on and off the field and he has kept teams and programs together because of who he is, a remarkable feat because I know what its like to go through travesty in an athletics department. It takes unique people to keep everyone together when you face that and a group of young men who have forged on when they faced adversity. I'm not going to bore you with any more statistics, let's let Randy speak for himself. I will share this with you three weeks ago I was able to sit down with a recruiting class, there were about 12 to 14 young men who came with their parents, and I had breakfast with them on Sunday morning. They looked at me and said Mr. Anderson we are going to win and not make a commitment until we find out who you are going to hire as your next football coach. Well, I am counting on those commitments being made after I make this announcement right now and as I pass on the hat. Ladies and gentlemen, our new head football coach for Maryland Randy Edsall."
Edsall's Opening Statement
"Well, I tell you, this is a very special day for me and my family. As
Kevin Anderson said, this is a dream job for me, this is the dream job. It's not every time in your life that you get to go and have an opportunity to do something that you've really wanted to do once you entered the career field that you chose.
"My first college football game that I ever saw was right in Byrd Stadium. It was back in the 70's when Maryland played Villanova and I still can remember where we sat that day. My brother and my dad were here for that game and I can still remember it was a rainy day, it was very wet, I remember Larry Marshall picking up a punt that was laying on the ground and running it back for a touchdown. And then to be able to come here and attend Lefty Driesell's camp for four years, this is what I grew up on. And it's not every day that you can go do something you like 70 miles away from home at an institution that I think has everything you need to be successful as a football student-athlete because of what the University of Maryland stands for academically, what it has here athletically, and because of the people that you're surrounded by. And for me, it was a dream come true and I'm honored and I'm privileged to be the head football coach at the University of Maryland.
"I'm extremely proud, extremely proud, to follow Ralph Friedgen. Ralph and I had had a chance to work together at Georgia Tech for a year and we developed a very good friendship. And Ralph is a very good coach, he's a very good person, and I look forward to taking the program from what Ralph built to a higher level. And I'm anxious to understand that how we're going to do that is going to be a grassroots effort for me and the staff that I put together to go out and embrace the community and let the community know that we will play exciting football, winning football, and that we want them to be proud of their state institution because we are Maryland football. We are Maryland football. And I can say that we will work as hard as we can and prepare the young men within this program to be the best students, the best athletes, and the best people that they can be. And everything's a challenge. Everything in life is a challenge. But, when you have people, working together as a team and understanding that it's about teamwork, it's not about individuals, we can accomplish all the goals that we want to accomplish as a program and as a University and I can't wait to get started.
"I had the opportunity last night to talk to the young men and about 15 minutes into it I noticed the guys had their hats on and some doo-rags, so I told them take it off, so I've got to take this off [his hat] right now or I'll get yelled at by the players. But, it's an exciting day for me. It's a very exciting day. And those young men that I spoke to last night I was very, very impressed with in terms of them looking me in the eye and then coming up and shaking their hands afterwards and knowing that I have a tremendous opportunity. It's an opportunity that I look forward to and I'm just grateful that Kevin [Anderson] gave me this opportunity and I look forward to meeting as many as you people here and all the Maryland fans as we embark on this journey to greatness. I want to thank everybody for being here and I'll turn it back over to the powers at be, but thank you very much and I'm honored and privileged to be the head football coach."
On his mission at Maryland:
"As I told the young men last evening, I came here to win championships. That's why I came here. I'm a coach and I want to win at the highest level and if we're going to put the effort and the time that we do as coaches and these young men do as student-athletes, every year our goal is to win the ACC Championship. That's what we're going to shoot for each and every year because if you don't, there's no sense for me to be here. There's no sense to coach. There's no sense to play. So to me, every place I've been, we've won. Life is about opportunity and you have the opportunity to compete at the highest level and to win at the highest level and you can do that here at Maryland. You can't be afraid to talk about it and you can't be afraid to say it. So, as I told those young men last night, I'm here and they're going to be here to win championships. We might not get one every year, but we're going to work our darndest every day to get us there. And we're going to work to be the best we can be in the classroom and be the best we can be as people. And if you do that, you're going to be successful at whatever you do."
On the team he is taking over:
"There's a good team coming back and I really look forward to the opportunity to work with these young men. The one thing that I'm smart enough to understand as a coach is you take a look at your personnel and evaluate your personnel and you do the things that they're capable of doing. You don't try to fit a round peg in a square hole. I had a chance to see a little bit of the bowl game. I'm anxious to look at a lot of film as I get back here and once recruiting is over with because that's the priority, recruiting. But, I'm excited. I'm excited because of the young men that I saw last night and had a chance to visit with them. And then talking to the coaching staff here this morning and getting a better feel for the young men and talking about their position. The biggest thing is this as I told the young men last evening, there's going to be times when they don't like the things that I might say but they're going to get the truth. I'm going to tell them the truth. I've been very fortunate because I've been around a lot of great people. I worked for Tom Coughlin, he coached me, George O'Leary, Dick MacPherson, and I've learned from some of the very best. I had the opportunity to be at an institution and learn from some good coaches at the University of Connecticut in Geno Auriemma and Jim Calhoun. And I see Gary Williams here today and I look forward to meeting Gary and spending time with Gary and picking his brain and picking things up from him because he has been very, very successful in what he has done. We're going to utilize all of our resources that we have here at the University because there's so many resources. Not just within athletics, but all throughout the University that can benefit the student-athletes that I'm going to have an opportunity to be able to coach."
On generating interest in Maryland football:
"Winning is a big part of it, but we didn't have a fan base at the University of Connecticut. But, we created a 40,000 person fan base or more and the way you do it is you go out and you become visible. You go out and you speak. And you go out and visit with people. You get out there and spread the message and spread the word. And I look forward to working with all the people here at the University's athletic department to get that message out and to be out in the community and to get people to understand that we have great young men here who play the football. And it's great to come here on a Saturday afternoon and to tailgate and watch these young men go out and compete and win. So yes, winning is a big part of it, but there's other things as a head football coach that I have to do to make the program more visible and more viable throughout the state and I plan to do that."
On not scheduling a high profile team because they may not do a home and home:
"I concur with Kevin on that. Hey, we're the University of Maryland, we aren't playing two for ones. If they want to play, we'll play them one for one. Let's go right now. That's just the way it should be. We don't have to go and bow down to somebody to go there twice and them only come here once."
On what the goals for the football program:
"What we are looking to do is elevate from being in third place (overall in the conference standings) to competing for the ACC Championship. As Coach talked about with the team last night, we feel like if we can accomplish that we can position ourselves to be in the hunt for a national championship. If you look at Randy's body of work, in 2003 he increased his attendance by 20,000 people in his new stadium in Connecticut. Taking all that into account, this isn't just a football move, it's a move by the entire athletics department. With the success of football then the entire department will be more successful and we can let a lot of young men and women go compete at a higher level because of the success of football."
On what he would say to the fans about the head coach he hired:
"I'd say that we got a darn good head football coach here. The reason why I know is that I have some friends who understand football and I have gotten a bunch of emails and text messages about the great hire from people who know this man and his body of work. He built a program that went from FCS, if you look at those first couple of years it was tough but it was going to be tough, but nobody else has done it and had his success. Let look at the past four years (33-19) with four bowl games, two wins and a BCS appearance. No one else in the history of college football, no one else has taken a FCS program to a BCS program in seven years and went to that type of a (major) bowl game.
"I go beyond that and he has said it it's about building a whole person and graduating kids, and making the people the best they can be. I've had the opportunity to sit down with our football student-athletes and talked about things before we even knew that Randy was interested in the job. They told me the person sitting next to me now is the type of person they want and that's the kind of coach we have. He said we are going to win, and there is no question in my mind that I hired someone who is going to win. We are going to win in the classroom, and we are going to have good people who are going to go back into there communities and make this country a better place. One thing that impressed me about Randy was the first time we talked, he said the real measurement is 12 years from now when he is in an airport or grocery store and someone comes up to him and talks about his son or daughter and what they have done in life."
On if Edsall's vision matches the players':
"It was important to me. 9-4 is a good year but we wanted more, which is what he wants to so we are on the same page. 9-4 isn't what we could be. It's good but we can do better. He has the same vision that we do in winning ACC titles here."
On the type of offense Coach Edsall will bring with him:
"It's going to be a pro-style offense which is what we ran here. I don't think the learning curve is going to be too big, I'm just excited to get my playbook and get started."
