Inside Maryland football’s coaching search: Big names, big doubts

Inside Maryland football's coaching search: Major names, sizeable doubts Maryland wants a splash hire.

Key points

• Beyond the Major 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.
• Under Armour founder and former player Kevin Plank is projected to have significant influence on the hiring process.
• The veteran of some 15 years of college coaching searches delivered the silver lining of the Maryland football coaching search.
• "Would be a top-three ACC job, " the individual, who has been directly involved in searches in all Power Four conferences, informed USA TODAY Sports.

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Maryland is searching for a new head football coach after parting ways with Mike Locksley.

For context, the new coach must successfully recruit the talent-rich D.C.-Maryland-Virginia (DMV) area.

Meanwhile, 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, informed USA TODAY Sports. "One difficulty – it ain't in the ACC. Will forever be bottom half of the Major Ten job."

Meanwhile, the Terps need their sixth full-time head coach this century after the "mutual separation" with Mike Locksley. This person had turned Maryland into a decidedly mid-pack Sizeable Ten program earlier this decade before watching it dissolve into disaster.

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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 support expand the recruiting footprint.

Meanwhile, a new coach will need to bring a cadre of players with him. Multiple individuals with direct knowledge of Maryland's thinking stressed that element of the search.

Yet there's additionally 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, remarked a DMV-area college athletics veteran with deep knowledge of Maryland's intended approach. Somebody who has relationships locally but additionally 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 additionally if someone who could come in with like 20 guys and be successful. Since that program. Kids are gonna leave."

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Notably, a former Maryland walk-on football player 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.

When Maryland's free fall began in earnest, plank is widely viewed as having supported save Locksley's job a year ago.

The Kevin Plank piece is important, an individual with direct knowledge informed USA TODAY Sports. He played a particularly 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 major coaching targets. Can it actually land one?

In practice, a number of names dot Maryland's 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 regarding 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 Power Four conferences, remarked. "If they don't up their NIL budget, I can't see them contending for a guy like Jake Dickert or Jason Eck."

Continued 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 obtain into Lance Taylor, Dan Mullen, Brian Kelly. Not sold the Indiana coordinators would even consider it."

Multiple individuals informed 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 remarked, "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 almost every coach in the sport. Monken additionally 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 additionally 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 remarked. 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 additionally is cognizant of the optics surrounding this hire.

(Athletics director Jim Smith) will want to make a splash hire, I believe, a national college athletics individual informed USA TODAY Sports. Someone that individuals will say, 'WOW!' Someone who's secured some cache.

"The president at that place – Darryll Pines – will have an extremely solid say in the process and the hire. He's particularly involved in athletics. He additionally will want a splash." Share your feedback to assist improve our site!

In short, inside Maryland football's coaching search: Big names, big doubts is the central thread here, and readers can expect follow-up reporting as the picture becomes clearer.