It doesn’t quite measure on the same scale as Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto‘s quote about America following the attack on Pearl Harbor, but former Texas Tech coach/Maryland candidate Mike Leach thinks the Terps are a “sleeping giant” waiting to be woken.
Leach was, of course, referring to Maryland’s hire of former UConn coach Randy Edsall.
“They [Maryland] made the decision they made based on whatever it is they were looking for,” Leach said in an interview with SI‘s Stewart Mandel. “I certainly had a lot of support there, and I think it’s a sleeping giant and I think they’ll do well.”
All things considered in the win-loss column, Leach and Edsall were essentially the same -- 8-5, 9-4, etc. How they got there, though, was like night and day. Leach had high-octane offenses and virtually no defense. Edsall won games the old fashioned way -- solid defenses and ground-and-pound offenses.
Considering Leach didn’t get the Maryland job for reasons involving his “dilemma” at Tech, you could argue that Leach, for once, took the high road.
But “sleeping giant”?
Look, Edsall is a good coach. He really is. But let’s not sugarcoat anything. Maryland AD Kevin Anderson fired Ralph Friedgen on the grounds of, among other things, an average record resulting in poor football attendance, and Edsall doesn’t necessarily provide an immediate answer to that.
Edsall to Maryland was a lateral hire for the coach and the program.
That’s not to say that Edsall can’t have success at a place like Maryland. It just means success is a relative term that probably doesn’t include “sleeping giant”.