It's too soon to tell whether the Maryland football program took a big leap forward with the hiring of former Connecticut coach Randy Edsall — which became official Monday — but athletic director Kevin Anderson definitely displayed a quick first step.
The Terps had to get their new coach in place in a hurry to protect this year's committed football recruits, and Anderson kept his promise to hire somebody in time for the opening of a new recruiting window.
There are going to be some hurt feelings for a while — both in the Ralph Friedgen household and among his supporters — but they'll eventually give way to a fresh outlook for the program, which Friedgen left in good shape.
The process was never going to be pretty because Friedgen and the Terps well exceeded expectations this year.
They were picked to finish last in the Atlantic Coast Conference's Atlantic Division and ended up in the hunt for the conference title. It was widely believed going into the season that if Friedgen could squeeze out six regular-season wins and get to a so-so bowl game, he would be back to coach in the final year of his contract. The Terps, of course, won eight regular-season games and became bowl-eligible so early that Anderson jumped the gun and announced that Friedgen would be back in 2011.
Anderson certainly had a right to change his mind, but everybody else also had the right to view the flip-flop as a breach of public relations protocol and an unnecessary embarrassment to Friedgen. In his defense, Anderson took over a program that featured an unusual coach-in-waiting situation that had to make it more difficult to develop a clear view of the school's football horizon.
Though he might have looked indecisive when he waffled about Friedgen, he moved very decisively in the immediate aftermath of the dismissal to form a search committee and set a tight timetable for the new hire.
Whether it was an entirely objective process seemed open to question. Former Texas Tech coach Mike Leach's name came up in media speculation almost immediately after Anderson's first hint in mid-December that Friedgen's return had been cast into doubt by the departure of offensive coordinator James Franklin.
Three days later, when Anderson made Friedgen's buyout official, he revealed that Leach was among the candidates on his personal list of possible replacements. There were a lot of people who thought the fix was in because of the supposed link between Leach and influential Maryland booster Kevin Plank, but Anderson clearly had other ideas — and priorities.
If you want to question the wisdom of the hire, that's certainly fair game, since you could make the case that Edsall bears more of a coaching resemblance to Friedgen than, say, Leach or some of the other big-name college coaches, but you can't call out Anderson for being indecisive or — worse — in anybody's pocket.
He hired a quality football coach. It'll be several years before we know whether Edsall was the perfect choice, but the future looks pretty bright. The Terps have a very promising young quarterback (Danny O'Brien) and enough returning talent to expect improvement next season. Whether a new coach can parlay that into a string of Top 25 seasons and BCS bowl appearances depends on a number of variables.
Hiring Edsall was just one of them.
Listen to Peter Schmuck on WBAL (1090 AM) at noon Fridays and Saturdays and at 6 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays with Brett Hollander. Also, check out his blog, "The Schmuck Stops Here," at baltimoresun.com/schmuckblog.