Terps get a taste of the 'winning formula' from the 'juice box'

COLLEGE PARK, Md. -- After Maryland’s 28-17 win at home against Michigan State last Saturday night, Terps head coach D.J. Durkin said the week of practice leading up to the game was heavily focused on getting his players back to enjoying football and having fun.

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A crucial win against the Spartans was not the only byproduct of last week for Maryland. The Terps have also regained their confidence and have a new source of energy know around College Park as “the juice box.”

“We’re all juiced up,” Terps junior left guard Mike Minter told reporters Oct. 25. “We’ve got ‘the juice box’ going--Coach [Rick] Court’s trademark. We’re just trying to have fun and play football. [Maryland’s coaches] are the most intense, juiced-up dudes I’ve ever met in my entire life. I think last week Coach Durkin and everybody tried to focus on us having a lot more fun and controlling the controllables. The juice box might have just been something that was made up on the fly but it got me juiced up. I was ready to go.”

The juice box? Are the Terps thirsty?

Well, not exactly. The juice box Minter is referring to isn’t a fruit-concentrate drink in a cardboard container with a straw.

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Prior to the opening kickoff against Michigan State, a mob of Terps could be seen on the Maryland sideline jumping around and waving towels while getting each other and the home crowd pumped up for the game. That energy translated onto the field for Maryland and the Terps went on to have perhaps their best performance of the season.

And it all got started with the juice box.

“Our sideline is the Juicebox,” Minter said. “The Juicebox is the rectangle of [players] on the [sideline] on kickoffs when everybody is all juiced up and ready to go, just screaming, yelling, throwing towels, ready to go. Just making noise to juice everybody up.”

Now that the Terps have gotten back on the winning track, they’ll try to emulate their success moving forward. Maryland’s first chance to keep the ball rolling comes this weekend at Indiana, and as Minter said, last week’s preparation has laid out a blueprint for success for the Terps.

“We have the winning formula now,” Minter said. “I felt like our practices heading into Michigan State were just so much better. We had so much more energy and it was just so much more fun. And I feel like now that we know that if this is what we do we’re going to win some games, it’s definitely going to affect our practice going into this week.”

Having more fun was just part of Maryland’s recipe for rebounding.

Minter added that he and his teammates also desperately wanted to get the taste of losing out of their mouth and weren’t about to stand for another defeat.

“I think we were all just kind of sick of losing,” Minter said. “Once you get that taste in your mouth--we’re a battle-scarred team now. We have two losses now and I know what it feels like to lose and I’m definitely of sick of that. It’s something that we don’t want to happen again so we’re going to keep practicing the way we’ve been practicing and just keep moving forward.”