Maryland: Soggy Defeat

Sometimes, you just can't win for losing.

BG had used all its promotional muscle on getting a crowd out for this game.  Everything, tweets, elementary school visits, signs...every lever was pulled trying to create a huge gameday atmosphere for what will quite likely be the last visit by a Big Ten team to the Doyt.  There was reason to think it would have succeeded....the Minnesota and Indiana games had huge crowds. 

Unfortunately, a tropical storm decided to sit over the stadium starting in the morning and continuing through the game.  BG had a very typical 16K in the seats and a typical halftime diaspora and by the time I left, it was the normal no traffic at the exit. 

I feel really bad for everyone involved.  It has to be very disappointing.  We just don't have a fan base that will sit in a rainstorm to watch us play. Hope there were at least some advance ticket sales.

On the field, it was less of a surprise.  What you saw on the field was a fundamental of the game of football:  if you control the line of scrimmage, you control the game.  Coach Jinks said that Maryland "physically kicked our tails" up front on both sides of the ball, and he's 100% correct.  You don't need any stats, you could see it.  BG could not run the ball at all...there was just nowhere to run.  And Maryland ran the ball at will.  (You don't need stats, but here are a couple anyway.  Clair had 2.8 yards per carry and Maryland averaged 8.4 as a team).

BG also had trouble protecting Doege, who was sacked five times, leading BG to throw mostly safe passes or max-protect fades in other to have a shot at getting the play off.

We've seen this before.  I remember in East Lansing, BG was doing well at half-time and MSU came out and stopped trying to throw the ball and went into a 13 formation and just ran the ball down our throats to get the win.  Those guys are bigger and stronger than our guys on a good day, and our personnel issues on the dline are well known.

Even with that, BG was ahead deep into the 3rd quarter.  As Coach mentioned after the game, BG had played "clean" without turnovers or stupid penalties and was leading 14-10 well into the 3rd quarter. 

That's true, it's a slightly misleading way to look at it.  The reason the game was close at that point was that Maryland had not played clean football (which reinforces Coach's point).  Maryland finished the game with 14 penalties for 139 yards and had 13 of those prior to finally taking the lead.  In fact, they seized the lead by scoring on a 3rd and goal from the 22 that was penalty-induced.  But there was no doubt that they were dominating the game well into the 3rdQ, score notwithstanding.

Anyway, Maryland kept the game close with those penalties but ultimately the one-sided nature of the play on the field was too much to hold back and when it broke it broke big.  Maryland scored 5 touchdowns in the last 19 minutes of the game....35 unanswered points to get a 45-14 final.

Coach gave the BG defense credit for staying in it, and I would as well.  They were getting punched in the mouth on every play and they seemed to punch back.  Over time, they just wore out from the beating and the tackling started to deteriorate and when it was done, it was done.

They were not helped by the offense, a point Coach made.  BG had two nice drives in the first half...an 89 yard, 14 play, 6:41 drive for one TD and a 5 play, 1:13 drive at the end of the first half that culminated with Doege scrambling and finding Morris wide open on a blown coverage for another TD.  He showed great QB instincts by keeping his eyes downfield on a very tough night where he appeared by the end to be as disoriented as everyone else did.

Beyond those drives, though, BG's offense won very few of its battles.  BG had 158 yards of total offense (UMD had 138 in penalties).  BG made only 13 first downs and 3 of those were given to them by Terrapin penalties.  Doege was 17 of 27 passing...for only 143 yards, which is 8 yards per completion...play calling forced on BG due to the protection issues.  If you deduct sacks, BG had 81 net yards on its passing attack.  Lastly, Maryland worked hard to take Scotty Miller away and it seems like Doege might be locked onto him a little.  At least a couple of the sacks were plays where he held onto the ball too long.

The last part of the tale of woe is injuries.  Scotty Miller appeared to injure his hamstring and that has to have the staff worried.  Hargrove left the game after a brutal shot on a KOR.  And Coach alluded ominously to defensive injuries and a "next man up" philosophy in his presser.

Coach made one last very odd comment.  He said "we're not satisfied by any means."  The context was having the lead into the 3rd Quarter, which is normally how he talks about the program's progress.

But, that's an odd thing for a man in his position to think he had to say.  I would certainly hope he isn't satisfied, at 6-20, with a six-game home losing streak that appears to be the longest in school history.  BG hasn't won at home in over 600 days.  Also, overall BG is on a five-game losing streak.  And while these last two games were certainly difficult assignments, they have both proceeded according to what you would have expected.  Until BG starts doing better than expected, the team is on track for a pretty long year.

So I would hope he isn't satisfied.