Terps Sports

Yeah I know, I was just bitter because I lost the +1 I had on the previous post. (But it's cool, I got it back )

Testudo Times is the Randy Edsall of MD sites

lol...the "leader" of the team transferred to another school. The guy that creates points...Id say we lost quite a bit of poison.

And Dill, who Edsall thought enough of to parade around to the alumni events as the player spokesman.

I'd hardly call what DOB did last season as "creating points"

We lost 3 scholarships last season because nobody cared how high the team GPA was.

I agree that he should be commended for the GPA being better. Ralph's diligence in this area really faded after a great start.

My issue is with his child-like "I won't discuss that", not with the actual decision, although I did not agree with his initial position regardless of what other coches do.

Fine young men and coaches should be willing to discuss issues like this. If he had a posiiton or opinion, explain it. If he made a mistake, acknowledge it and move on. If he still does not agree, that's fine - say that.

Rangoon doesn't like intelligence, he likes grunts who aren't smart enough to see through his BS motivational tactics and will blindly fall in line.

Yeah, I never understood that. In his first couple of years, Ralph made a huge deal about graduation rates, getting photos taken on the Gossett Deck with the graduating players in their caps and gowns, etc. He would insure that boosters touring Gossett were taken to the study hall and if you talked to him directly he was all about making sure as many kids as possible would graduate. Somewhere past his halfway point, he seemed to lose interest in pushing the kids academically and we started having fewer kids in good standing. Never heard anyone really talk about this. Maybe Eli can shed some light?

Let me attempt to speak to some of this without being judgmental. My son entered the Program for the 2006 season, and the battle between Ralph and Debbie Yow kind of peaked in 2007, IMHO. At the time, major changes were made in the support staff, and I believe in the study halls. Players had to go to Comcast rather than Gossett for some if not all Academic Support and scheduling.

That to me, was issue #1 in the start of the decline in academic results and in the start of the decline in APR. I haven't checked the actual year to year decline in APR for reporting purposes to the NCAA, but when Ralph left and Coach Edsall arrived, it was the first year for the Football Program to fall below NCAA standards and for reductions in scholarships. APR is a rolling average of something like a 5 or 6 year period fwiw so getting penalized last year was based off of a cumulative average of the years from 05 or 06 and beyond.

Before the season started, SIX 5th year students were not renewed for their 5th year, and it was announced that EACH of them would graduate. That was the quick fix for the APR fwiw. They count towards graduation totals earlier as opposed to a year later. (Davidson, Drummond, Jamarr Robinson, Pooler, Watson and Brown.) Hawkins, Smith, Donahue and Douglas left the Program for PT I presume and not for any other reason. Williams chose to not enroll because of track, and only Kerr left for Academic reasons and Lewis was dismissed for a behavioral problem. That's 13 of the kids with remaining eligibility and only one, Zachary Kerr was academically related as far as I can tell, and IMHO, he was just thrown in for PT without a chance of graduating because he was very much over matched at UMD without red-shirting.

Since then we've had 14 more kids leave the Program. DOB and Dill both graduated which again will help the APR. Most of the other kids (not all but most) left in good standing, and as long as any of the kids who transferred were in good standing, they probably won't hurt APR down the line.

So what is the gist of the issue here? With 27 guys leaving the Program, don't you think that APR and the team GPA for those who chose to stay would go up for a couple of reasons? First, 8 of the 27 did graduate. Second, some of the kids with issues, grades and/or behavior are gone, and the others left in good standing. So if you just look at the kids who are still in the Program, by and large, they are the better behaved and more dedicated student/athletes which is reflected in the statistics for a higher GPA. I for one would expect GPA and APR to go up. It's low hanging fruit. This isn't a discussion of their relative playing ability after all. It is shining the light on the bright side of all of this change/turmoil/rebuilding/attitude adjustment or whatever you choose to call it.

Bottom line is that GPA has gone up, and will probably stay up partially because there are not as many STEP Program kids remaining in the Program, and if you follow recruiting, the over whelming majority of the kids who committed to UMD in the last two classes are not academically at risk and they may even be of higher character than some of the prior classes of recruits under Fridge and Franklin.

It is pretty well known that Fridge wanted more and not less "at risk kids" admitted because they were the better players as a rule, and he kind of peaked out under Yow with that approach mostly due to Academic results and performance. Both were I think just trying to do their jobs. So a lot of this IS a product of change, and you have to take the bitter with the sweet. In this case, give Coach Edsall some credit for at least taking the Program in a positive drection with regard to academics and conduct, and since he is in a somewhat defensive position vis-a-vis the media and all the critics based upon wins and losses, I would be hawking this success as well if I were in his position. I hope that helps put a few things in perspective from what I have observed over the years.

yea but it makes the legit criticism's carry less weight.