The veteran of some 15 years of college coaching searches delivered the silver lining of the Maryland football coaching search.
Followed immediately by the storm cloud.
“Would be a top-three ACC job,” the individual, who has been directly involved in searches in all Power-Four conferences, told USA TODAY Sports. “One problem — it ain’t in the ACC. Will forever be bottom-half of the Big Ten job.”
Maybe. Maybe not.
The Terps need their sixth full-time head coach this century following the “mutual separation” with Mike Locksley, who had turned Maryland into a decidedly mid-pack Big Ten program earlier this decade before watching it dissolve into disaster.
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Maryland’s next coach must win the DMV recruiting battle
But tossing the first of what are now three Power-Four openings into the dustbin would be shortsighted.
Maryland sits in the epicenter of the talent-rich DMV (DC-Maryland-Virginia), with ample airport and mass-transit access to help expand the recruiting footprint.
A new coach will need to bring a cadre of players with him. Multiple people with direct knowledge of Maryland’s thinking stressed that element of the search.
Yet there’s also an opportunity to build from the DMV outward: locally, regionally and, eventually, nationally.
“Somebody who can recruit the talent in this area — and I don’t think it has to be someone from the area but at least he knows the area,” said a DMV-area college athletics veteran with deep knowledge of Maryland’s intended approach. “Somebody who has relationships locally but also with other relationships and can find guys elsewhere. (Maryland) hasn’t always gotten the best of the best locally.
“I think it would be great if it was somebody unique, but also if someone who could come in with like 20 guys and be successful. Because that program … kids are gonna leave.”
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Maryland needs a new coach. Kevin Plank looms over it all
Beyond the Big Ten residency and the challenges that come with it, there’s another crucial element to Maryland’s search, one of the human variety: Kevin Plank.
A former Maryland walk-on best known as the founder and head of athletic apparel giant Under Armour, Plank, in news that should surprise no one, wields Pentagon-sized influence over the Terps’ search.
Plank is widely viewed as having helped save Locksley’s job a year ago, when Maryland’s free fall began in earnest.
“The Kevin Plank piece is important,” an individual with direct knowledge told USA TODAY Sports. “He played a very significant role in the hiring of Locks and played a significant role in keeping Locks (as long as Maryland did).
“He’ll play a significant role in the process of hiring a new coach. The Under Armour connection is significant. I think Kevin is definitely the most influential person in the search from the outside.”
Maryland has big coaching targets. Can it actually land one?
Several names dot the Terps’ potential wish list in the nascent days of the search: Wake Forest’s Jake Dickert, Memphis’ Charles Huff, New Mexico’s Jason Eck and even longtime Notre Dame and LSU coach Brian Kelly.
But four national collegiate coaching agencies that spoke with USA TODAY Sports expressed skepticism about Maryland’s chances of landing a surging coach such as Dickert or Eck, arguably two of college football’s fastest-rising sitting head coaches.
“It’s an OK job. Good facilities and good recruiting landscape,” one agent with clients in all P-4 conferences, said. “If they don’t up their NIL budget, I can’t see them contending for a guy like Jake Dickert or Jason Eck.”
Added another rep with experience among the industry’s largest firms: “I don’t see Dickert or Eck taking it. Starts and ends with Huff, in my opinion. If he doesn’t want it, we get into Lance Taylor, Dan Mullen, Brian Kelly. Not sold the Indiana coordinators would even consider it.”
Multiple people told USA TODAY Sports they did not see either the Indiana or Miami coordinators having interest in the Maryland job at this time: Mike Shanahan and Bryant Haines for the Hoosiers; Shannon Dawson and Corey Hetherman for the Canes.
Maryland may need to think differently to land its next coach
Still, the job has selling points.
“They have some high-level talent,” one agent said, “and their spending isn’t awful.”
Could Maryland go a wholly unorthodox route?
One individual emphasized the Terps could look to the ranks of NFL coordinators, though, again, Maryland needs a coach who can walk in the door with players ready to follow him.
Then there’s Army coach Jeff Monken.
He’s won everywhere he’s been, often with fewer resources and more constraints than nearly every coach in the sport. Monken also has been a recent bridesmaid in other Power Four searches, including North Carolina and West Virginia.
He’s not eager to leave Army, but he’s also not afraid to test himself outside a service academy. Over the past 18 months, Monken has visited with the programs at LSU, Ohio State and Oregon.
“Obviously, they haven’t been able to win there consistently,” a sitting head coach whose team has been ranked multiple times this decade in College Football Playoff rankings said. “It’s clear that they aren’t at the top of the league in terms of funding for their roster.
“If they can’t be better (from a talent standpoint), they would be wise to be different than everyone else. Nobody could win consistently at Army, either.”
Initially loath to move first in what has thus far been a more muted coaching cycle, Maryland also is cognizant of the optics surrounding this hire.
“(Athletic Director Jim Smith) will want to make a splash hire, I believe,” a national college athletics individual told USA TODAY Sports. “Someone that people will say, ‘WOW!’ Someone who’s got some cache.
“The president at that place, Darryll Pines, will have an extremely strong say in the process and the hire. He’s very involved in athletics. He also will want a splash.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Inside Maryland football’s coaching search: Big names, big doubts