There are two sides to running things "loose". One is, these are adults, > 18 and you should treat them as such. I tend to chafe at the authoritarian style of management, and if a coach is putting silly rules in place to make a point about discipline, he's overreaching and a little bit of insurrection is fine by me.
Some of the Post articles about Edsel did not paint a flattering portrait of him, of his dictates and rule mongering.
Last year the Post (especially Wise) felt like jumping on the "freak Randy Edsall" bandwagon once things went south and just kept piling on.
The players here seem to embrace what he's preaching and he also seems a lot looser. I have zero problem with his focus on accountability in the classroom and being more than just football players. The Post people were pissed than Ronny Tyler was suspended for the last game of his career; turns out, Ronny had someone else taking tests for him. People still lynched Randy for that, which is just absurd.
I think Edsall made a lot of mistakes last year, especially in regards to who his coordinators were. Bradford was not expected to be the DC, but once Brown left abruptly, he had to hire in-house, but Crowton was a terrible hire all-around. With Locksley - a DC recruiting guy - and Stewart - an established DC who players love - Edsall finally has his own guys in here. Last year was just a disaster, and he made a ton of mistakes from the start. I think this year he's figured it out a lot more and is a ton more comfortable. That's why these last two losses are killer. Edsall finally has a team that believes in him and is playing well, and their QBs all get hurt and they lose at the last second each time. Brutal.
