Randy Edsall Fired by Maryland: Latest Details, Comments and Reaction

After more than four inconsistent seasons, Randy Edsall's tenure as head football coach at the University of Maryland has come to an end. ESPN 980 provided Maryland's official statement: 

Edsall's firing is not a surprise, even as it happened in the middle of the Terrapins' season. Jeff Ermann of 247Sports reported on Oct. 8 that the 57-year-old was "unlikely to survive" past Saturday's game against Ohio State, which Maryland lost, 49-28:

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With the team off to a miserable start, fans revolting and boosters withholding donations, Maryland athletics officials are expected to move forward with their plan to fire Edsall, 57, in the fifth year of his original six-year, $10 million contract, and name interim head coach -- perhaps offensive coordinator Mike Locksley -- before eventually hiring a replacement to revive the struggling program.

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Maryland athletic director Kevin Anderson confirmed the decision had been coming for a while. "It started back at the second game of the season," he said, via CoachingSearch.com. The Terrapins lost that game to Bowling Green 48-27.

Maryland has gone through a series of peaks and valleys throughout Edsall's tenure. He won a total of six games in his first two seasons and followed that with back-to-back seven-win campaigns in 2013 and 2014, but Chris Vannini of CoachingSearch.com noted what the program did before he arrived:

Ralph Friedgen raised expectations at Maryland, for better or worse. He led the program to seven bowl games, including an Orange Bowl appearance in 2001, and three consecutive 10-win seasons during his 10-year stint as head coach. 

Edsall was never able to duplicate the culture established by Friedgen. John Feinstein of the Washington Post wrote in 2011 after Edsall's first season that Maryland should have fired him then. 

"He didn’t get it a year ago," Feinstein wrote at the time, "when he didn’t have the class to tell his Connecticut players in person that he was leaving. He didn’t get it when he started spouting off about rules as if he had invented the idea of discipline."

Four years later, Edsall has lost his job. He's been a controversial figure dating back to his time at Connecticut, but he also has eight winning seasons since 2003 with the Huskies and Terps. Those aren't traditional football superpowers, so he will likely receive another opportunity with a Power Five school. 

Maryland gets a clean break from Edsall with an opportunity to salvage something from this season and get a head start on exploring all of its coaching options for the future. The program has had enough recent success that it should be an attractive job to a rising coaching candidate who is looking for a chance to break through.