Details of Maryland football interim head coach Aazaar Abdul-Rahim's new contract released

19 hours ago

2 min read

Roughly one week after being announced as Maryland football's new interim head coach, details of Aazaar Abdul-Rahim's amended contract have been released.

Abdul-Rahim earned a near-$400,000 raise with his annualized compensation now $1.045 million for the remainder of the season on an annualized basis. That includes an additional $420,000 in his annual supplemental income, while his base salary remains $400,000. Abdul-Rahim can also earn $100,000 if Maryland ultimately participates in a non-College Football Playoff bowl game.

Maryland also agreed to a $100,000 incentive if Maryland wins at least three of their final five regular season games. While Maryland hosts Illinois this weekend before traveling to Purdue to open the November slate, the schedule still features games against a struggling Penn State team, USC on the road along with 25th-ranked Wisconsin headed to College Park on Nov. 14.

Yet Abdul-Rahim will look for the changes in the daily structure to materialize into different results on gamedays. Maryland is now turning to shorter practices while eyeing the chance to condense the gameplan on offense, defense and special teams.

"On base down calls I didn't want multiple -- eight to 10 base down calls on defense or offense. Why don't we just be really good at five or six?," Abdul-Rahim said on Tuesday. "So condensing I think is important. Plus it allows you in practice to rep that call a lot of times with a lot of different scenarios. So some people call them one-offs. You don't really want a lot of one-offs on the offensive side of the ball."

Abdul-Rahim re-joined the program following the 2024 season and was initially announced as the new defensive coordinator when the program announced the departure of Ted Monachino one day after the bye week. Yet days later, athletic director Jim Smith pulled the trigger on his decision to part ways with Mike Locksley as head coach on Oct. 21, vaulting Abdul-Rahim into an interim head coach opportunity for the first time in his career. While no staff changes have materialized on offense, inside linebackers coach Zac Spavital has been elevated to defensive coordinator and will call plays for the remainder of the season. Safeties coach James Thomas, one of the longest tenured and most respected staffers in the program and DMV, has been elevated to co-defensive coordinator. Two former players will also serve as part of the on-field staff with David Brownlee taking over the outside linebacker room and Will Likely taking the cornerbacks room.

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