Prior to the 2001 season, Ralph Friedgen took over as the Maryland football team’s head coach. A Maryland graduate himself, he hoped to restore the Terrapins’ struggling football program.

Few people gave him much of a chance. The basketball team was on the verge of winning a national championship, but would Maryland ever be considered a football power?

‘I don’t think I ever looked at this as a rebuilding project,’ Friedgen said. ‘I looked at it as an opportunity and just wanted to do all I could to make it a success.’

Friedgen has certainly taken advantage of the opportunity and turned it into success. In his first season, the Terps won the Atlantic Coast Conference Championship and played in the Orange Bowl. Each of the last two seasons, Maryland has won a bowl game.

Friedgen has taken a once-struggling football school – more known for its basketball – and turned it into a continual winner. It’s a task Syracuse would like to emulate.

The remarkable turnaround in Friedgen’s first season is even more incredible considering the Terps went 5-7 the year before. Friedgen said he believes the dramatic change is just from getting his players to believe in themselves once again.

‘We just showed (the players) that we had a plan,’ Friedgen said. ‘I think they were so tired of losing that they bought into it.’

Friedgen remembers the days when the team would be lucky if a few thousand fans showed up for games. A few weeks into the season, fans were already praying for the beginning of basketball season. Now, he said, every game is a sellout.

Though Maryland is still known as more of a basketball school, Friedgen believes that the basketball team’s success has only helped the football team.

‘Just like us being successful in football probably helps the basketball team to some degree,’ Friedgen said. ‘It just keeps the name Maryland in front of people.’

Published on September 1, 2004 at 12:00 pm