DL Cam Rice after blowout loss following bye week: "A lot of guys are upset, disappointed on how things are going"

Ahmed Ghafir
1 day ago
5 min read

After having an extra week to prepare for the nation’s second-best team, Maryland football still found itself unresponsive after getting punched in the mouth on Saturday in an eventual 55-10 loss on homecoming. Opening the November slate is far from ideal with one more ranked opponent still left, but it also means the losing streak continues with Maryland winless since September.

“It’s not good, as you could imagine,” DL Cam Rice said after the loss. “A lot of guys are upset, disappointed on how things are going, but I mean nobody's pointing a finger. Nobody's pointing blame. We all know that we all got to get better at what we do and just keep pushing. Better times are coming.”

Four days after head coach Mike Locksley said he “could’ve paid” RB Roman Hemby, who transferred from Maryland to Indiana this offseason, Maryland was held to just 37 yards – its fewest since rushing for 15 vs. Penn State in 2023. On the other end, Indiana ran for 367 yards – marking the most during the Mike Locksley era and second time since 2021 the opposing team has rushed for over 300 yards – with RB Roman Hemby punching in one of four rushing touchdowns.

“That’s tough. That's a lot of rushing yards, especially as a defensive lineman, you never want to allow a team to rush like that on you,” Rice said about the run defense. “We just got to stay gap, sound, reset the line of scrimmage and make tackles.”

But the defense stood tall early, giving the offense a short field after CB Jamare Glasker recorded an interception for the third consecutive game and fourth time this season, but similar to October, the offense failed to turn redzone opportunities into touchdowns. Sean O’Haire opened the scoring with a 24-yard field goal, but that would prove to be one of a few highlights after the offense recorded five turnovers and four three-and-outs - all while every drive spanned under three minutes.

QB Malik Washington threw a pair of second quarter interceptions in addition to a strip sack that led to a 32-yard IU touchdown, while completing just 51.6% of his passes - two weeks after completing less than 48% of his passes vs. UCLA.

“Yeah, it was just tough. Sometimes that's the way the cards go. Like we couldn't really get into a rhythm offensively,” Washington said. “We weren't helping our defense out by having short drives. So that's the part of the complementary football that we got to fix is being able to sustain drives.”

More from Malik Washington & Cam Rice after Saturday’s loss

Washington on three turnovers

“Just been able to maybe process things a little faster, go through the reads a little faster, and understand not every situation has to be forced. There's situations where you can take the check down and live to see another play.”

Washington on Maryland finish 3-of-12 on third down, whether there’s extra pressure

“Any third down situation is something that you want to complete, especially, in your own in your own area, or being past the 50, just trying to get it to sustain the drive. It's not - I wouldn't say it's pressure. It's just more like something that we got to get done and get executed.”

Rice on the toughest part about facing IU’s offense

“They really didn't do much that we haven't seen. I'd say probably when they hit us with those QB draws and the draws there early on, we got great pass rushers so we read the high hats when the offensive lines pass walking and we kind of pin our ears back and try and get back to the quarterback, and it slips right up the middle on us. It's tough. We haven't really seen it too much this season but we're going to take the right steps moving forward to defend that.”

Washington on what offense needs to do in redzone opportunities

“We’ve just got to execute. They’re making great plays, getting us a ball in great field position. We got to come away with touchdowns, not just field goals or punts. We got to be able to score the ball.”

Rice on Whether Maryland ran out of gas in the second half

“It's hard to tell. There was several points throughout the game where we didn't execute very well. We missed tackles. It happens. We've been working on it. We just got to keep working, work harder and make those plays when they come.”

Washington on the halftime conversation, playing up-temp in the second half

“That's just something we felt we needed to do, just to change the pace, to get some new looks, and be able to kind of just go out there and play freely, not so much thinking involved, and it helped us out in those first drives us being able to score.”

Washington on the biggest life lesson through eight games

“Being able to endure, really. It's just been tough for me, especially just, you know, in high school, we didn't lose too much, so now, like just having to learn how to deal with losses and be able to come back from it and come back stronger.”

Washington on staying level headed in rough games

“That's all you can do, is take it play by play. You can't relive past plays, turnovers or not like you just got to take it as a next play.”

Rice on being a veteran to lead the defense

“Main thing, I think, just keeping the guys together in the locker room and things like that, which hasn't really been huge issue. A lot of the guys believe how good we can be and what we can do. So just keeping the main thing, the main thing, and like you said, just be a leader on the defensive side.”

Washington on what it takes for Maryland to be at Indiana’s level

“You just have to be prepared go out there and execute. I think they just executed more plays than we did. That's most of the time how football games go. When teams win, they execute more than a losing team. So we try to go out there and execute.”

Rice on the defense vs. IU

“We just turn to each other. We play hard for each other. At the end of the day, you don't like seeing that 55 up there on the scoreboard and giving up all the yards that we gave up, but yeah, I mean, we just wanted to keep playing hard until the very end.”

Rice on the defense mixing up schemes through the bye week

“Coach Ted [Monachino], he does a great job dialing things up on defense. We started off the game really well. I think he called some great calls and we executed the right way. We just got to sustain that throughout the rest of the game.”

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