Aazaar Abdul-Rahim on Maryland's road win, prepping for Wisconsin, changes within the program

5 hours ago

11 min read

Fresh off the road win against Purdue, Maryland football interim head coach Aazaar Abdul-Rahim reviewed what went right and wrong vs. Purdue and looked ahead at what he's looking to stop vs. Wisconsin:

Opening Statement

“To recap, we kind of moved forward a little bit, but I was extremely happy, probably more than anything for the young men in the program and to experience that type of feeling after games. Obviously the season has been what it is. We've moved to a newer part of our season, and I'm just extremely excited for what the future holds for the University of Maryland football. Also, I'm definitely grateful for the amount of University of Maryland fan support who've had to endure some tough times, and hopefully, we brought a little joy to them as well and that's important for our program and to represent the university and again the state of Maryland.”

On the players playing more free, comfortable

“To be quite honest, our staff got together right when Coach Locks got let go, and we created a blueprint of how we felt to be successful. We didn't really look at what was done before. We wanted to be as imaginative, innovative as possible, and in some of the things that we felt that was important for young men. And I think during these types of, these changes, I think it's important to try different things. I think it's important for the kids to feel something new, to feel a little bit of breath of fresh air, so to speak. So we came up with the plan, and probably the biggest thing I'm excited about is one, the plan is working. The plan is working in our favor, but they believe and that's what I told them in the locker room. It's like they believed in us and that's humbling as a leader, because everybody has great ideas, especially as a coach. You got great plays. Every coach, they may go into a certain game plan and look and really dissect every aspect of that play – the good, the bad, right? So nobody just tries things. Just, but at the end of the day, we did. We looked at the good and the bad, and they believed in it, and it's been some positive results.”

On Wisconsin QB Ryan Hopkins

“I think he's a really good quarterback. You see a level of poise with someone who has not played a lot of football. He doesn't look inexperienced. He doesn't look rattled. I think they do a good job, which you should do with a freshman quarterback of trying to make his reads as easy as possible. And obviously, I've played as a player, I've played against Wisconsin, and they have a set culture. They are who they are and their culture is that they're going to run the ball and they're going to establish a running mentality. So that is probably more of how we need to set the tone, is the run game. The run game will allow him for his decision making to be pretty easy. And obviously, they did a good job on the plus side of him taking shots and throwing downfield, and he was successful last week. But we do understand, like Wisconsin football is built on stopping the run and running the football.”

On Zion Elee’s progression

“We're extremely excited for Zion. I've had a hand in recruiting him. We've been recruiting him for a long time. So we knew what he could do on the field, so to speak. I think his growth has been more off the field. He's a lot more mature. We put a lot – we’re talking about an 18-year-old whose whole lifestyle has shifted in a matter of months. And if you don't get that side of the equation fixed, the football is the easy part for him. And it's more of us surrounding him, letting him know what's right and what is wrong, what's acceptable and what is not acceptable, and that ends up being – you see the results of that, of his life outside of football, as far as his character and integrity. You see that improvement, which I think showed on the field.”

On Chris Durr’s steadying presence

“I think that's what I love about him the most is I got the same Chris Dur yesterday. We had a walk through Saturday, Sunday, and I got the same Chris Durr that I got during the season, the same Chris Durr that I know pretty well. Because as the DB coach, you're going against him every day. And a relentless competitor. He's so process driven that his success has not been a determent. It actually fuels him for brighter stuff in the future, and we got a lot more football left. So, looking forward to seeing him out there again.”

On Zion Elee’s ceiling

“I think you can answer that question, to be quite honest. I mean, you see it. Probably his most impressive play was not his sack. It's a play on there where they had what we call a league play, so a play action play where it's a hard play to stop and it ended up being an explosive play. But he was a defensive end, and he ran 50 yards down the field and tackled him. And to be quite honest, those are the plays, not just Zion, we talk about those are brotherhood plays. He just did an unselfish act. That really, it wasn't just about him. He did that for the team. So literally, when he made that 50 yard burst up the field, which most defensive ends don't do, he did that for someone else, and that is what I celebrated more than anything. And that was one of the clips that I showed the team. I didn't really show his sacks. I showed that effort, and we need more effort like that, those brotherhood type of situations.”

On Terp Alley

“We're not allowed to talk about that. No, it's we wanted to create a little bit more of a competitive environment in practice, you know, and that's what we call a turf our Terp Alley periods. Those are ones versus ones, good good versus good, and we created an environment of competitiveness that can try to the most part, simulate a game. So certain situations, it could be for all fourth down. It could be all two point plays. It could be just third down. All of the things that we needed to do better with that you only get a live, intense rep in the game. We wanted to try to emulate that in practice. And everybody is bought into it. You even hear it on the sideline during games. So those are some of the things that I think that we shifted as far as what we did during the previous season where like practice matters. And then your execution during those Terp Alleys matter. Like if you're not executing in Terp Alley, good luck playing in the game because we [are] treating it like a game. So you see a level of intensity in practice that is hard to duplicate. But again, we're trying to get as close to the game as possible.”

On implementing more takeaways

“To be quite frank and honest, we've been playing Jane. We've been doing the same things that we did the week before. And I think sometimes when you get off of the path, the singleness of purpose, that's when other things may happen. But we've been stressing turnovers, since we’ve gotten back. It's hard nowadays sometimes, man, to really get turnovers taught in practice only because you need a live rep. You need live intensity, especially when you're trying to punch a ball out. Like Scruggs, his turnover. Like you can't do that in practice to a quarterback. You can't. So you got to simulate certain drills beyond that, but at the end of the day, it's an awareness that we have brought up of getting turnovers and how turnovers win football games. So yeah, it's bringing that to their attention over and over and over again.”

Whether going on the road helped shift the team’s mindset

“I like that question definitely because that's making me think. I don't think we did too much, too many things different, but it is a level of calmness when you go on the road, when you're at a hotel. We literally at a hotel where we were kind of the only occupants in the hotel, so we were able to just kind of hunker down and talk about, ‘hey this is the 100 people this is all we got walking into their territory’ so to speak. So I think organically I think they got that and understood and to your point, yes, it is a little bit less stressful. It's less things to think about. A lot of their parents aren't there. Their girlfriends, their cars, all that stuff, we left all of that at Maryland, so it can be an advantage to us, so to speak.”

Whether Saturday’s win alters season aspirations

“I'm pretty process driven, so I know we at Wisconsin. And this is what, some of the things that I've learned from coaching and just having coaching mentors is the better coaches I think are the ones that keep their head down, and even in good times, they're even more meticulous. They are searching for complacency in their program. I've learned that from some pretty good coaches, I think, and I really take that model as I'm searching for complicity. Like I have a problem with the penalties. And I'm looking at okay, is there something else in the program that I'm not doing that has created a little bit of freeness and looseness to think somebody can do certain things during the game? So I'm more focused on, obviously Wisconsin is an extremely well coached team that has culture on their side. We're building an identity, all right. We don't have a set culture of who we are on the field, and so I'm battling that right now, and I'm and I'm really focusing on just stopping the run of Wisconsin, man.”

On RB DeJuan Williams

“I think what Clint [Trickett] has done a good job is because I think DeJuan is a rhythm type of runner. He has to get lathered, so to speak. So he needs more than just one, and then his pass. Clint has done a great job of just getting him warmed up and good things happen. He's an exceptional back who has home run ability. But sometimes, if you're just doing it once and then it goes to a different type of pass, that he may lose his feel for what he just felt. So I think they've been intentional of understanding like he is one of our better players on offense. And it goes back to our bye week, first thing we did. We talked about ranking individuals and seeing who needs touches? Who needs the ball? And that's been intentional by our coaching staff. We rank, we re-rank and we continue to rank because sometimes rankings change. But he's a guy that I think good things happen if he gets a certain amount of touches, and that's what we've seen.”

On taking off Malik Washington’s plate, facing less pressure

“I appreciate that question, Trevor, because it is important to me. One, I think Malik is an outstanding young man who doesn't need – no one needs that and myself included. We have a really good team, a talented team of individuals, so he doesn't necessarily have to do it. And I'm sticking on him. He's a great distributor. He's a great distributor and he doesn't need to be the all in all to an offense. And so I thought you [saw] that. I thought Clint did a really good job, and the offensive staff did a really good job of getting certain individuals the ball in space, which sometimes those are long handoffs. I thought we did a really good job, and we were intentional in trying to create explosive opportunities. Some of them we got, some of them we didn't. And then, to Malik’s credit, we had a third and ten in the fourth quarter, where I assumed we were going to punt the ball because it was third and ten. And that the play he made, the ball placement that he made. This is why he's our guy because he can make those type of plays. He just doesn't need to make those types of plays every play because we got other guys to do it.”

Whether ending there’s less pressure with 13 Big Ten losing streak snapped

“No, not really. To be quite honest, I'm happy to get the win, but I expect to win every week by how I prepare first and foremost as the leader of the program. And if I don't expect a win, like how can I really relay that with passion to our young men? They have to believe. If we do the right things, if our process is the right process, and we're disciplined in our deal throughout the week, like why shouldn't I feel like I should win every game? And that's how I'm gonna feel the rest of the time I'm the coach here. Because any other way of thinking, what are you really telling your players? And they'll know. They'll know. So my excitement, my energy, my focus is going to be the same each day because they deserve that.”

On Purdue’s final drive

“A couple of things, and as bad as I like to not answer this question because you know I want to move forward, but it's a great question. The first thing I think Terp Alley helps us because literally we have those types of situations, whether on the plus side or minus side or two minutes. We have those situations where it's not uncommon for them to be in that situation. I think that helped us. The other thing is the brotherhood where we're beating them in the head about somebody has to make a play for someone else during that period, and you watch. I had too many brotherhood clips. I couldn't show all of them in the team meeting because you just see a lot of selfless acts, which is important to the program. And then the last thing is you yeah, you want to make a play during that time you know. And I think you know if you watch the coverage everybody did their job in coverage which allowed the quarterback to to really pat the ball. We were in a you know a man type of a call and we had a spy for the quarterback which was Sidney [Stewart]. And everybody did their job. And so more important of the situation, if you get enough people, if you can get 11 people doing their job, your probability of winning that rep is very high. If you can get nine or ten people doing their job, and you get one extraordinary person who does somebody else's job and his job, then you got – so it has to be one of the two, in my opinion, and that's what stressed to our kids.”

On Na’eem Gladding’s performance vs. Purdue

“Na’eem is one of our guys. And obviously, I think he's a great one-two tandem with uh with [Chris] Durr. A lot of times, to be quite honest, it's the flow of the game. Because again, we have a lot of guys that deserve some touches. I think we have two really good tight ends. I think we have more than more than one running back, and then you're talking about Na’eem, but Kaleb [Webb] is a really good wide receiver for us and Jayden Kitchens gives us reps as well. So it's again, I think from an offensive perspective, we have a lot of weapons that we definitely have to get touch for.”

Which penalties do and don’t bother AAR

“Definitely the unforced errors. Again, because somebody asked me about holding, but I mean more defensive holding, right, and [pass interferences], that's a product of playing a lot of press man. It's a product of playing tight coverage. We're going to continue to do that. Everybody knows that week in, week out, we're going to get in people's faces and we're going to compete at the line of scrimmage. And that's the cost of doing business. It's more of the mental errors that – the personal fouls that's not going to be tolerated. That's more of a discipline, and this is what we have harped on since we've taken over from our new season is essentially being a disciplined player. That's part of technique. And that was unfortunate. And we'll get it fixed, and guys will learn from it, or they can't help us, and they understand that.”

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