Any minute now, Frank Reich is going to come in and win this game for Maryland. With the Terps? football team trailing, 28-0, to West Virginia in the first quarter, it?s a perfect situation for him. Mr. Comeback is going to save the day!
(Hey Matt, the game?s over, bud. It ended, like, four days ago. It was a slaughter of epic proportions. Oh, and by the way, Reich has been gone from College Park since the mid-?80s and out of the NFL since the late ?90s.)
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Back to reality. If you have any connection to Maryland football whatsoever, please, get off the ledge. West Virginia scored in every conceivable fashion during the first quarter. I think they even reached the end zone during timeouts.
No one in their right mind expected the Terps to beat West Virginia. The Mountaineers are a national title contender ? a soft one playing in the Big East, at that ? but a contender nonetheless. Still, it was reasonable to expect Maryland to make the game respectful. They barely had time to unpack their bags before getting gougedworse than a rookie matador.
The problems started with the porous defensive schemes that the Terps lined up with against the run-heavy Mountaineers. Instead of jamming the box to force West Virginia to pass, Maryland seemed perfectly willing to let them do whatever the hosts pleased up front. For anyone who watched last season?s affair at College Park, this year?s version of defensive futility had to feel like the cruelest of rewinds.
To be fair, West Virginia has more talent than Maryland right now. Knowing that, Maryland coaches needed to out-scheme their opponent. Instead, for whatever reason, Maryland?s coaching staff ? from Ralph Friedgen on down, remained stubborn at the expense of the team.
It played right into West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez?s hands. How did this all happen? Three years ago, Friedgen was coaching circles around this guy with equal ? and in some cases, lesser ? talent.
Now, West Virginia takes a one-game lead, 22-21-2, in the rivalry. After enduring Terps? blowouts of teams like Middle Western Appalachian Valley ? or something like that ? it?s easy to get excited for a border war. These are the ones you really want to win.
After next season, the rivalry will take a two-year hiatus, as Maryland plays a home-and-home series with California. As nice as West Coast exposure will be for the Terps, they are down to one last shot at evening up their series with the Mountaineers, a rival in the recruiting trenches as well as on the field, until 2010.
Terps fans will have the bitter taste of this blowout in their mouths for a whole year. Can you imagine waiting three years to get revenge after something like this? Brutal.
Matt Palmer is a staff writer for the Baltimore Examiner. He can be reached at [email protected].
