I was never a big fan of Mike Leach, but I always respected what he accomplished at Texas Tech. The scandal that ended his tenure at Tech always seemed bizarre, and he’s in the middle of several lawsuits with the university and with ESPN.

Ron Modra has written an interesting profile of Leach in the Washington Post, which finds him in Key West as he waits for another opportunity to coach a major college football program. he had a shot at the Maryland job but they picked Randy Edsall from UConn instead.

I think he’ll get another shot eventually. My guess is you’ll see him at a BCS conference school that has hit rock bottom.

Some Connecticut fans will criticize Randy Edsall for leaving the program to become the next head coach at Maryland. But that’s not fair. Edsall must have believed he went as far as he could go at UConn and Maryland offers him a new challenge and a different opportunity.

Ask yourself this before you criticize his decision: If you were given the same opportunity in your career, would you make a move as well? People often point out that loyalty doesn’t exist anymore in sports and while that’s true, times have changed. Even in a down economy, there’s more money to be earned and now more than ever, you don’t move up the corporate ladder by staying in one spot.

That said, I think it’s open season on Edsall for how he left Connecticut.

If the reports are true and he gave almost no indication to anyone at UConn that he was leaving the program, then ditched his team to hop a plane to Maryland after the Fiesta Bowl, then I don’t blame anyone associated with UConn for being a little salty right now. Fans will forever be grateful for what Edsall did for the Huskie program (and not just for what he accomplished this season), but they won’t soon forget how he ditched them for a bigger conference but not necessarily a better team. (Nobody would have blamed Edsall for going to the SEC to coach someone like Kentucky. But Maryland? Come on.)

The timing of Edsall’s departure makes sense for him. His stock will never be higher than it is right now after leading the Huskies to a BCS bowl and if he didn’t want to coach at UConn for the next 10 years, now was the time to leave.

But he certainly didn’t do the Huskies any favors on the way out. They just lost by four touchdowns on national TV and if Edsall didn’t inform AD Jeff Hathaway that he was leaving until he signed the dotted line at Maryland, then it’s not like Hathaway is prepared to find his replacement quickly. It’s a bad deal all the way around for Hathaway.

Selfish is probably too strong a word to use here, but Edsall definitely didn’t have UConn’s best interests in mind when he hopped a plane to College Park following the loss to Oklahoma. And if he never parlays the Maryland gig into a bigger job, then I wonder if he’ll regret ever leaving the friendly confines of East Hartford.