Bowl aspirations take a hit as Maryland football's losing streak continues in 35-20 loss vs. Rutgers

jmcconn3
12 hours ago
4 min read

A desperate Maryland football team starts to watch their season slip away, failing to get back in the win column in essentially a must-win game for bowl eligibility, drops to Rutgers on the road 35-20, now below the .500 mark (4-5 overall, 1-5 BIG 10). This Maryland team hasn’t won a game in nearly 50 days (49), a streak that this team is failing to erase week by week.

While the story of the season has been how Maryland has blown fourth quarter leads, this time, they tried to climb back, as they trailed by 11 going into the final 15 minutes. However, the result was the same as the previous games, despite the circumstances.

Rutgers had a secret weapon this week that they abused to put points on the Terps defense, wide receiver Ian Strong. Strong finished the game with three receiving touchdowns on 88 receiving yards, as he entered the game only having two on the season. Running back Antwan Raymond also put up video game-like numbers, 242 rushing yards and a touchdown, as those two torched the secondary.

On top of those two, Maryland’s defense allowed four straight touchdown drives for the Scarlet Knights from the end of the second quarter into the first drive of the second half, which stretched the deficit and brought the game tougher for them to comeback.

"Our defense has carried us for seven games and have played their butts off," head coach Mike Locksley said. "They're a little banged up on that side of the ball, being inexperienced and banged up, but the last two games haven't been good enough on the defensive side to complement what we were able to do offensively."

Maryland flipped their script against the Scarlet Knights however, turning to a part of their playbook that rarely finds success, the run game. The Terps got hot early on the ground, with the second play of the game turned into a 73-yard rushing touchdown from Quarterback Malik Washington. Not only was that the longest rushing play of the season, but they also finished the game with 305 rushing yards (164 from Washington), and their most in six years, after having only two rushing yards in the first half the week prior against Indiana.

Washington wasn’t the only one involved in the ground attack, running backs Nolan Ray and DeJuan Williams made their presences known. Ray had a 53-yard burst which put the Terps in scoring position, which happened the play after with wide receiver Kaleb Webb, and Williams who finished with 64 rushing yards. The only true positive outlook on the stat sheet for the offense.

“Showed a little more balance on offense in terms of just the ability to get the run game going and put both sides of the ball on third down did some good things," Locksley said.

While that part of the offense had success, the passing game was quite the opposite. Washington was able to run the ball almost willingly around Rutgers defense, but not so much when it came to trying to stripe the ball to his receivers. Especially in the waning moments of the fourth, where he threw for under 100 yards with conservative and safe checkdown throws, not enough to gain any sort of traction. Saturday marked the first time Maryland threw for under 100 yards since Nov. 12, 2022 vs. Penn State when the team finished with 75.

"If you watch the tape, they play zone coverage, and when they play zone coverage, this means they drop deep. So you got to check it down, short passes, make a guy miss, run for extra yards, that's typically what you like to see. We didn't do a great job of run after the contact or right after the catch in some of these situations, but haven't watched the tape enough to fully evaluate it," Locksley said.

"There were some plays that we left out of the field," Washington said. "I wouldn't say so much it being hindered, but the run game, being able to work for us, so we kind of stuck with it, you know, being able to get the ball in the hands of our guys that are making plays and the backs were doing that all night."

Locksley knows that time is running up for any sort of bowl eligibility, and has expressed that in the locker room.

"We're in the middle of a tough stretch for this group and the young guys," Locksley said. "As I told them in the locker room just now, don't understand that now we're running on limited opportunities for some veteran players that have done some good things around here for the last four or five years, and that we're down to playing for pride and opportunites for these guys to extend, and so as I told them, it's my job to remain positive. It's going to be my job to keep showing up for these guys and coach them through this tough stretch."

Maryland will gear up to go on the road again, this time against Illinois for their next game.

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