Maryland retains Brown and Hull

Maryland announced Tuesday night it will retain defensive coordinator Don Brown and wide receivers coach Lee Hull as part of new coach Randy Edsall's staff.

The potentially interesting part of this development isn't so much who was retained --- although keeping Brown, the architect of Maryland's much improved defense should bear fruit next season --- but rather what sort of impact this has from a recruiting standpoint.

Brown's recruiting territory included Florida, which Connecticut managed to mine for a few players while Edsall was in Storrs. And Hull's recruiting area is western Pennsylvania, a state Edsall relied on heavily during his time with the Huskies.

Among those  not retained were Al Seamonson (whose recruiting territory included South Carolina) and Tom Brattan (who has ties to Virginia's Tidewater area as well as Georgia). Of course, Dave Sollazzo's ties were in New York and New Jersey, and he wasn't kept either. Neither was Kevin Lempa.

(EDIT, Wednesday 8:15 p.m.: A Maryland team spokesman said Brattan could still be retained. I offer my apologies for my misinterpretation of Maryland's announcement on Tuesday).

Still, this could be an early hint of where Edsall's recruiting priorities will be --- perhaps a northward shift in a search for talent, while keeping an eye on Florida as well. Time will tell, of course, but it is telling Edsall opted not to retain most of the old staff's connections to the south.

Comments

[Triple H]

Wouldn't it have made sense to keep Sollazo, since he was the recruiting coordinator? Does that mean they'll bring in someone else with area ties?

[AK]

interesting he got rid of the person responsible for the tidewater area. That is a hotbed for talent with the Vick's, Torrey Smith, to name just a few. I know VaTech stacks their team with players from that area so would have been nice to have some friends there. That being said, I wonder is UConn made any inroads down there looking for talent?

[D1scourse]

AK ---

Not sure about UConn off the top of my head, but Torreys not from that far down in Virginia. Hes a Stafford County product, right around Fredericksburg.

[terpfan2011]

I am surprised he didn't keep the linebacker coach. Isn't he the reason we had so many studs at that position.

[D1scourse]

terpfan2011 ---

Seamonson had the outside linebackers for much of his career; he worked (among others) with Merriman before taking over all the LBs in 2009. That said, I would have guessed he would be an appealing guy to keep around for recruiting and continuity reasons. Obviously, I guessed wrong.

[AK]

Sorry about that mistake with Torrey.. I misread the article from the post about his family situation and assumed he was from that area.

Either way I would really have liked to have a coach with strong ties to that Norfolk/tidewater to steal a few players from tech and UVA. Though it may be better in the long term to protect our own backyard which has always been difficult and may get more difficult with the recent 3 weeks well publicized.

[D1scourse]

AK ---

Frankly, Maryland would be well-served to poach talent from both areas. I am not convinced Maryland will become a true destination school for most local players; realistically, it might be that only winning huge can shift sentiment in that direction.

[ngaterp]

You want to mine Virginia we may want to talk George Foussekis out of retirement. He was also a heck of LB coach and player in his day at VT. He had strong ties to the entire state of Virginia.

[Scott]

I am surprised that Tom Brattan may not be retained. He's a good offensive line coach and he's done a very nice job recruiting for us making inroads in both the VA Beach/Tidewater areas as well as in Georgia. He has pulled in some great prospects from both areas. I'm also surprised that Al Seamonson has been let go. He's been a good linebacker coach, and a decent recruiter in both Northern VA and South Carolina. He also has a son that's a walk-on on the team and another child (a daughter, I believe) in school here. I know he wanted to stay. I'm not that surprised that he let Kevin Lempa and Dave Sollazzo go, but I was hoping he would keep the defensive staff together. We were making good progress on that side of the ball. On offense, I know I read that John Donovan and Charles Bankins were going to Vanderbilt with James Franklin and negotiating deals, but they are not listed as having been hired at Vanderbilt. So, I'm curious what is going on with them.