As University of Maryland athletic director Kevin Anderson stepped to the podium Dec. 3 to introduce DJ Durkin as Maryland's new head football coach, he did so with the football team having just completed a 3-9 season. The 2015 campaign capped a rocky tenure for former head coach Randy Edsall, who was fired midseason and won just 22 games in nearly five years as fan interest waned.
Anderson knew he had to inject life into the program. He rattled off what Maryland was looking for, and he found it in the former Michigan defensive coordinator.
"The qualities included having a strong and dynamic leader with a great energy for our program, an innovative football mind, being engaging and having a great personality that would appeal to our fan base and to our donors and to our alumni," Anderson said Dec. 3. "We wanted someone with a strong background that had a great, winning pedigree, and we wanted somebody who was going to be a national and great recruiter."
