A recurring series where we will profile every player on Maryland's roster, counting down to kick-off against William & Mary on September 1. Thanks to OBNUG for the idea.
Today we profile Maryland's wide receivers coach.
Lee Hull, Wide Receivers Coach
via grfx.cstv.com
Stats:
Date of Birth: 12/31/65
When he joined Maryland: 2008
Twitter: @FBCoachHull42
Alma Mater: Holy Cross '88
Hometown: Vineland, Nj.
How'd He Get to College Park?
Of all of Maryland’s assistant coaches, Lee Hull might have the most successful background, playing-wise. An honorable mention all-state wide receiver at Vineland High School in South Jersey, he moved on to Holy Cross, where he played under former Maryland coach Mark Duffner for two seasons. A preseason all-american selection before his junior year, he then played three years in the CFL, with both the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and the Toronto Argonauts. Hull was signed by the Patriots in 1998, but as far as we can tell didn’t make it out of camp.
Hull’s first two coaching jobs came at high schools in Massachusetts. He spent a year as the passing game coordinator at Auburn High School after two years as the offensive coordinator at South High School, then returned to South as the head coach. He then spent a year as a volunteer assistant coach with the Blue Bombers and two years interning with the San Diego Chargers before returning to his alma mater.
At Holy Cross, Hull started as a linebacking coach in 1998, but quickly moved to wide receivers the next year. After four years in that role, he was hired away by Oregon State, where he was the wide receivers coach from 2003-07. In 2008, he was hired by Maryland for the same position, where he was remained ever since.
Nickname:
Lee "Major" Hull
Career Highlight:
Torrey Smith's 2010 season.
Career Lowlight:
N/A.
Dream Season:
Kevin Dorsey breaks 1,000 yards, Kerry Boykins catches five touchdowns and Stefon Diggs earns freshman All-American honors.
Nightmare Season:
None of those things happen.
2012 Prospectus:
Maryland actually has a good amount of depth at wide receiver, but not much in proven talent. There are three guys who had a real role last year in Kevin Dorsey, Kerry Boykins, and Marcus Leak (and that last one is a stretch), but with Devin Burns, Nigel King, Tyrek Cheeseboro and a host of talented newcomers, there is a pretty large pool of guys to choose from to find the right rotation.
We've mentioned it at length before, but there's a very good combination of skills available to Hull at the wide receiver position. Dorsey is an all-around number one receiver, Boykins and Burns are good possession guys, King is a great physical talent, Leak is quick and Cheeseboro has top-level speed.
For the unit in general, the main question from Maryland fans and observers around the country will be how Stefon Diggs is handled. The talented freshman made his debut on the depth chart as the fourth option at slot, but it's likely he'll switch over to that feature position behind Dorsey by the time the season starts. He will undoubtedly play this year, but how much of an impact will he have as a true freshman?
Ultimately, much of the success of Maryland's passing game is out of the receivers' control thanks to C.J. Brown's penchant for running and erratic throwing. By all accounts he's become a much better passer than last year, but we'll see if he can consistently hit his targets, especially the longer ones (with the amount of deep threats the Terps have).
As for the future, the good news is that everyone but Dorsey and Boykins are underclassmen (and out of those, all but Burns and Leak are freshmen). This group will (hopefully) be around the program for a long time.
Up Next:
Our next player was the first from his high school, a local powerhouse, to commit to Maryland in recent memory.
Dirty_Terps continues to creep up the scoreboard.
Standings:
Terpsonfire - 11
Maryland1206 - 9
Dirty_Terps - 8
kbuts151 - 6
bubbasparks - 4
ClickClack62 - 3
Terpsfinish - 2
curterp - 2
T Free - 1
Mdak06 - 1
clevesanterp - 1
CSB Jack - 1
fballplyr92 - 1
Everybody else - 0