ENGELKE: Meet the new boss, same as the old boss

Today I want to introduce to you coach Randy Edsall, our new head football coach at the University of Maryland.

What was that, Kevin Anderson? I think I misheard you. Did you really say Randy Edsall, and not Mike Leach?

So after all that — after the humiliating ouster of Terrapin football coach Ralph Friedgen under the guise of a "strategic business decision," the $2 million contract buyout and the on-campus interview with former Texas Tech coach Leach — the Terp football team's next coach is going to be Edsall.

It seemed Anderson, who was hired as athletics director in September, originally wanted to hire the home-run hitter in Leach, the guy who would have put people in all those empty seats at Byrd Stadium. Instead, he went with the guy with the .300 batting average — or in this case, eight wins a season.

Edsall isn't the flashy hire that many Terp fans wanted. He won't fill more seats than Friedgen would have next season. The two coaches do, after all, boast very similar coaching pedigrees.

While at Connecticut, Edsall went 74-70 and 22-26 in Big East play after the Huskies made the jump from the Football Championship Subdivision to the Football Bowl Subdivision. Friedgen, on the other hand, went 75-50 and 43-37 in T oday I want to introduce to you coach Randy Edsall, our new head football coach at the University of Maryland.

What was that, Kevin Anderson? I think I misheard you. Did you really say Randy Edsall, and not Mike Leach?

So after all that — after the humiliating ouster of Terrapin football coach Ralph Friedgen under the guise of a "strategic business decision," the $2 million contract buyout and the on-campus interview with former Texas Tech coach Leach — the Terp football team's next coach is going to be Edsall.

It seemed Anderson, who was hired as athletics director in September, originally wanted to hire the home-run hitter in Leach, the guy who would have put people in all those empty seats at Byrd Stadium. Instead, he went with the guy with the .300 batting average — or in this case, eight wins a season.

Edsall isn't the flashy hire that many Terp fans wanted. He won't fill more seats than Friedgen would have next season. The two coaches do, after all, boast very similar coaching pedigrees.

While at Connecticut, Edsall went 74-70 and 22-26 in Big East play after the Huskies made the jump from the Football Championship Subdivision to the Football Bowl Subdivision. Friedgen, on the other hand, went 75-50 and 43-37 in conference play.

Edsall went 3-2 in bowl games, capped by a 28-point loss to Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl. Friedgen went 5-2 in bowl games and finished his career as a Terp with a 51-20 thrashing of East Carolina.

And appropriately, the Terps replaced their ACC Coach of the Year with the Big East Coach of the Year. How fitting.

Edsall wasn't necessarily a bad hire, and he shouldn't be shunned for leaving his old post to take a better job. The guy can obviously coach, bringing Connecticut from irrelevance to a BCS bowl berth.

But hadn't Friedgen done essentially the same thing at this university? Before the Friedgen era, the Terps had not won a bowl game in 16 years and produced just one winning season since 1990. During his 10 years in College Park, the Terps went to seven bowl games.

"Ralph has done a tremendous job, and he's a great Terp," Anderson said. "A 9-4 season speaks for itself, and the bowl win. I want to thank Ralph for everything he's done because he's truly laid the foundation for why we're here today and passing on the baton to coach Edsall."

The hire could prove to be a good thing a few years down the road. If Edsall can take the Terps to a few ACC Championship games and even one or two Orange Bowl appearances, fans will start to come around. But with the talent the Terps have on their roster, Friedgen could have done the same thing.

A month ago, the firing of Friedgen made sense, even if it was done in a disrespectful manner.

Anderson chalked the move up to the Terps' dire bottom line, and his motives were valid. The Terps averaged 39,168 fans — out of a capacity of 54,000 — per home game in 2010, and they needed a new coach who would infuse life and energy into the program.

Edsall at this point just doesn't do that. Seats won't be filled at Byrd — just like they weren't with Friedgen — unless the team proves it can do some serious damage in the ACC.

Had Leach been brought in, the Terps would have filled up Byrd at the beginning of the season. Now, it's going to take a 10-win campaign and a shot at the ACC title. Terp fans who had been dreaming of Leach's "Air Raid" offense, with returning ACC Rookie of the Year Danny O'Brien at quarterback, now have to bide their time with a defensive-minded coach whose Connecticut team averaged 151.1 passing yards per game last season.

The hire just doesn't make that much sense. After firing Friedgen, Anderson said the Terps were going from "good to great." This hire moves the Terps from good to still good. It really isn't that big of a change, which is why Friedgen's firing can't be rationalized anymore.

Players did respond positively to Edsall's hiring after having met with their new coach. But both O'Brien and defensive tackle A.J. Francis said Edsall resembles their former coach.

"When we met him, he seems like a really down-to-earth guy," Francis said. "He seems like a guy that doesn't take crap from anybody. He seems a lot like Coach Friedgen, to be honest."

"He seems like a no-BS kind of guy, which I like," O'Brien said. "It's similar things to what Friedgen did."

Which is exactly the point. Why fire Friedgen and replace him with a near-identical version, only younger and a bit slimmer?