The firing of Ralph Friedgen had a lot of similarities to the firing of Mason. Both took-over programs that were cellar-dwellers for several years and brought them to a level that few outsiders thought was possible. Both saw their programs back-track a bit, and both were ultimately fired with horrible timing and without any sort of real vision or plan.
But Edsall and Brewster are very different. Edsall was a proven program-builder. He took Connecticut from nothing to mediocrity (in the worst BCS conference after most of its best teams had left for the ACC), including a highwater mark 9-win season.
Why did Maryland hire a coach like this after a 9-win season in the ACC? It is every bit as confusing as why Minnesota thought it apropos to hire a first-time HC to "improve" a program that was bowl-eligible 7 out of the previous 8 seasons in the Big Ten (at a time when it was very easily the first or second strongest conference).
Either one of these hires might have worked out. But it wasn't very likely. In both cases, the AD relied pretty much exclusively on selling hope and hype to sell a few season tickets. Both completely ignored or failed to comprehend the 10-20 year impact of their descisions.
Minnesota was intereseted in Edsall in the hope that he would have been able to get the team back to a .500-.600 level. I can't understand what the hell Maryland was thinking.
