Mike Leach at Maryland: Can He Cure What Ails The Terps?

For a weekend that didn't see a single bent blade of field grass, it sure was a wild couple of days for the Maryland football team.

Let's recap. Friday morning, Maryland's offensive coordinator and previously designated "coach in waiting" James Franklin headed for Nashville, where he put weeks of speculation to rest upon being named the new head coach at Vanderbilt.

Friday afternoon, rumors lit up the Maryland end of the Internet with predictions that athletic director Kevin Anderson would ask coach Ralph Friedgen to retire.

Saturday afternoon, those rumors proved correct, as word came down that Fridge had accepted a buyout of the final year of his contract.

Saturday night, reports surfaced naming former Texas Tech head coach Mike Leach as Friedgen's successor.

So here we are. Although Leach's hire isn't a done deal, Maryland is gunning for him with both barrels. Leach has said before that he is "willing to talk to anybody" about a coaching job, and presumably Maryland would be in a particularly good position to have his ear, given that Leach is tight with Kevin Plank, a Maryland alum, board member and owner of a little company called Under Armour.

(As an aside, Plank could be poised to become to Maryland what Phil Knight and Nike are to the University of Oregon, and facilitating such a flashy hiring would surely be a feather in his cap. Only time will tell how that will ultimately shake out, although in the meantime, please buy Under Armour!)

The most immediate question, of course, is whether the controversial Leach is the right man for this job.  The way I see it, Maryland is fighting a two-front war here: one of actual football, and one of public opinion. 

In terms of Xs and Os, the Terps could potentially thrive under Leach's high-flying vertical passing attack. With Leach at the helm, Texas Tech finished second in the nation in passing in 2009 and first in 2008, averaging about 40 points per contest during those two campaigns.  By comparison, this year Maryland finished 65th in the nation for passing yards, and from 2008-2010 scored a relatively paltry 24.6 points per game.  

But adding 16 points per game to your output is not as easy as simply transplanting coaches. The Terps are losing primetime receiver Torrey Smith and several senior receivers, although ACC offensive rookie of the year Danny O'Brien appears up to the challenge Leach's offense would present under center. Hopefully wideouts Ronnie Tyler, Adrian Coxson and a new crop including Nigel King and Marcus Leack could pick up the slack when the older guys depart. However, these guys are largely untested.

An even more pressing question is whether Maryland's offensive line can improve enough to give the passing game a chance to work. The Terrapin backfield is also uncertain, with the unit's only proven receiving option, Da'rel Scott, graduating and no real threat having emerged at tight end (though Will Yeatman has shown flashes).

As most fans know, however, to talk about Leach's on-field exploits is to tell only half the story. Because, let's see, how should I put this, the dude is crazy. According to the linked article from the New York Times, Leach is a rambling eccentric, "a walking parenthesis, without a companion to bracket his stray thoughts." The article tells the tale of a time when Leach, after a team loss, lectured the players for three hours—that's 180 minutes—about pirates. Pirates? But at the same time, he is portrayed as someone who can get players to run through a brick wall for him. Interesting.

Oh, and there's that whole locking-a-player-in-a-closet thing. Oh, yeah, that. That's what got him run out of Lubbock, though in a lawsuit that is still very much ongoing, Leach claims it was a wrongful termination, and that the powers that be at Texas Tech were just looking for a reason to fire him because they all hated him and were looking for a reason to let him go. Oh, OK.

Also, over Thanksgiving he slapped a libel and slander suit on ESPN. So he's got that going for him, too.  One good sign on this front is that Leach has been living in Key West this past year. He's just as crazy as ever apparently, although perhaps (and hopefully) a bit more mellow as a result (if Key West won't help you in that area, I don't know what will).

But as far as the PR battle goes, Leach's filterless brand of coach-babble (remember such hits as "fat little girlfriends?") will play well with fans and media, but only as long as the team is winning and he doesn't, you know, lock anybody in a closet. And to be certain, the greater Washington D.C. area will be placing a few more microphones in his face than he encountered in the Texas panhandle.

Which brings me to my final point. Maryland athletic director Kevin Anderson must have watched with bemusement (at best) as Friedgen's Terps racked up an 8-4 record, but did so in front of a partially empty home stadium. The 54,000-seat Byrd Stadium averaged 39,167 fans for their six home games, and only broke the 40,000 mark twice (against Florida State and home opener Morgan State).

It was the poorest showing since 2002 and, in an age when ticket sales matter for all sorts of reasons (including bowl placement, for better or worse, and I've said my piece on that), you've got to put the backsides in the seats. The Terps played pretty well this year, completing a major turnaround from their 2-10 performance in 2009 and earning Friedgen the ACC's Coach of the Year award in the process. But it was anything but exciting. At least in the games Maryland won.

Which brings us back to Leach. No denying that the guy is an exciting presence both on and off the field. But at this point, it seems he might be a little too exciting. To this point, he hasn't proven he can comport himself in a professional (or lawful) manner off the field. And though his passing scheme has rightly drawn plenty of praise, it is not a lock (at least not for me) that Leach can simply plug himself into Maryland's roster and immediately start producing 50-point games.

I don't want to be a Negative Nelly right out of the gate, and I'm sure Maryland will reap some benefits from this hiring. But at the same time, I think it's pretty safe to say Leach hasn't done enough to earn the benefit of the doubt.

(For this and plenty more news and commentary on all things Terps, visit us over at Shell Games, or follow us on Twitter @Terspsblog.)