Sorry I’ve been non-existent on the blog lately. The first week back at college is a busy time, so there’s not much time for blogging. But now that I’m settled in, I should (hopefully) be on the blog more often.
As I walked around campus this week, something was amiss that wasn’t really surprising at all, but still very disappointing. Someone walking around the College Park campus would have no clue that Maryland football had its season opening date with Navy in Baltimore on Monday.
The enthusiasm for the football is that low.
Students are rather indifferent about the beginning of Maryland’s football season, seemingly resigned to a losing season this year — maybe not as bad as last year, but a losing season nonetheless. There’s virtually zero excitement among students that the season is starting (at least, as far as I can tell.) Sure, the students will still go to the games and will get a little bit excited if the team starts fast. But as for now, the students just don’t give a damn.
I’m not trying to judge about whether the students’ apathy is right or wrong, but I’m just telling you what the atmosphere around College Park is for the football team is. A quick start could change that quickly, but Maryland will be significant underdogs in two of their first three games (against Navy and at West Virginia.) And if Maryland does get off to the slow start that it looks like it might, get ready for The Ralph Friedgen Watch to get rolling early in the season.
Apparently the students aren’t the only ones who have taken a step back from the football team — according to a report by Jeff Barker of The Baltimore Sun, sales for season ticket packages and family packs are way down, and the school is struggling to fill up its brand new suites. I’m sure the economy plays some part in the decrease in ticket sales, but the bottom line is that fans are much more willing to shell out for season tickets if a competitive team is on the field. A 2-10 season doesn’t help bring in new customers and keep long-time ones.
Even if excitement is way down, I’ll be spending Labor Day on Monday at M&T Bank Stadium for Maryland’s season opener against Navy and, you know what? I’m looking forward to it. After all, it’s football. I love football. Everyone loves football. And the beginning of the college football season means we’re just one week from the much higher quality and more entertaining brand of football demonstrated in the NFL the Baltimore Ravens playing the New York Jets on Monday Night Football.
I’m very pleased to see these two teams playing — it makes too much sense for these teams not to play (the campuses are about 30 miles away from each other.) It looks like Navy will be about a touchdown favorite in this game, which seems like a fairly appropriate spread.
I’ll be seeing Navy’s wacky triple option offense in person for the first time, which I’m excited about seeing (although, I’m sure the Maryland defense isn’t particularly looking forward to having to stop it.) Navy’s triple option is quarterbacked by senior Ricky Dobbs (6-foot-1, 203 pounds), who will run all over the Maryland defense if the unit performs anything like it did last year. On the defense last year, Maryland struggled mightily just to tackle. If that continues, lots of Maryland fans could be headed for the exits early on.
It’s been so long since I’ve seen Navy play — even on television — and it’s been since December since I’ve seen Maryland play, so I don’t really know what to expect. But I do know that if Maryland hasn’t significantly improved since last December, they’ll get beat handily by Navy. I’ll give the benefit of the doubt right now to Friedgen that his team has improved by quite a bit from last year’s mountains of inexperience and injuries (they do have a pretty low baseline, after all), but I don’t know how they’ll handle Navy, a team that can give anyone fits.
Still, though, I have a weird feeling that Maryland plays really well and pulls out a win. Unfortunately, everything but my weird-gut- feeling-that’s-biased-by-going to-Maryland points to a Navy victory. We’ll see.
So, I’m looking at Maryland’s home dates this year: Morgan State (9/11), Florida International (9/25), Duke (10/2), Wake Forest (10/30), Florida State (10/20), and North Carolina State (11/27). If you’re looking for more reasons for Maryland’s drop in ticket sales, then look no further than the slate of home games — the only interesting home date is the Florida State game. Ick.
(Side note: Tonight, I’m headed to the Aberdeen IronBirds’ game, where Orioles’ prospects Manny Machado, Mychal Givens and Connor Narron will all presumably be in the lineup. I’m very excited.)
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
My family has season tickets to Terps football, so I should be at most, if not all of the home games. I think there’s a few reasons to the “low interest” in MD football in addition to the fact the Terps have not been doing too great since the beginning of the Fridge era.
First of all, look at all the pro teams around the DC-Baltimore area, not to mention you have two passionate fan bases with the Redskins/Ravens. The Redskins have the longest wait-list in the NFL and interest in the Ravens is definitely growing.
Second, the ACC has not traditionally been a football conference. Growing up, it was all Florida State, all the time. The ACC is primarily a basketball conference dominated by the likes of Duke and UNC, but more recently it has been much more evenly spread.
Third, similar to the last point, Maryland has traditionally been a men’s basketball school. While it has succeeded at lacrosse, it’s soccer and women’s basketball (not so much this past year) standing have been rising. Football has traditionally not merited much notice. It’s been a long time since they had a player of Boomer Esiason’s talent (I think Darius Heyward-Bey was overrated by the Raiders, shocking).
I noticed a lot of apathy from the student section last year. In many cases, the section remained half-empty until halftime, other times they never showed up. Only being a few years from college, I know that noon or even 1 might be considered “early.”
Hopefully, the Terps can play competitvely with Navy, a game they could win despite being underdogs and can be successful during a relatively light preseason schedule, the only matchup that scares me is WVU. They need to be 3-1, but anything less than 2-2 would be a massive disappointment.
I think even with a “successful” season, there’s a good chance that Fridge goes. He is signed through 2011 when Franklin is “supposed” to take over. A bad season does not bode well for the coach-in-waiting.
Former AD Debbie Yow would have gotten rid of Fridge had she been able to come up with more cash. The only reason he’s still there is financial.
A similar season like last year, you could be looking at a Mike Leach or latest carousel player to take over. Fridge’s future is likely incoming AD Kevin Anderson first major decision.
He will be a lot less likely to keep him around since he inherited him and represents a previous regime.
Really good points about the other reasons for the apathy for Maryland football currently, but if Ralph was running winning teams out on the field year in and year out, these other reasons for not coming to games — whether it be the economy, other football teams in the area, or whatever — would all be moot point. Winning cures everything.
My buddy floated this name to me in terms of the next Maryland coach — Bud Foster, defensive coordinator for Virginia Tech. My top criteria for a new coach as of now are 1) recruiting and 2) bringing in a dynamic offense, but Foster would be an excellent hire, even if he isn’t an offensive guy. But let’s give Ralph one more chance.
You’re absolutely right with my points not being an issue if they were winning. Winning cures everything, look locally at the Caps for one despite a lack of hockey culture in this area. Can’t see Bud Foster, I think he’s turned down other head coaching jobs in the past. One of the major factors of VTech’s success is the stability among Frank Beamer’s coaching staff. He takes cares of his assistants to say the least.
Nonethess, Bud Foster would definitely be a good choice and would be a great target for Kevin Anderson. I think there will be plenty of choices to say the least. It is not a top-notch job like Notre Dame, Florida, or Nebraska but it is a good job in a major conference, in one of the top major markets in the country on the east coast (DC-Baltimore), and upside with the football program in the stadium expansion project.
The problem with Fridge was that he couldn’t sustain the long-term success he had at the beginning. 20 years ago, he would have been high at a basketball-first school like Maryland but with “win now” mantra and consistently of this era, this is no longer the case.
In essence, the first major decision Kevin Anderson will have in December will potentially be two-fold: (a)Do you retain Fridge?… (b)Do you fork over seven figures to allow Franklin to walk and hire a marquee name.