COLLEGE PARK, Md. — Returning home for Family Weekend in College Park, Maryland (3-3, 1-2 Big Ten) hosts Indiana (4-2, 1-2) Oct. 19, as the Terps will try to slow down the Hoosiers’ momentum while finding some of their own.
“It's great to be able to come back home this weekend in the shell where we play Indiana, another opportunity for us to go out and have an opportunity to play with the kind of consistency that we know we're capable of as we've shown,” Maryland head coach Mike Locksley said.
After honoring former head coach Ralph Friedgen at the last home game in College Park, Maryland will take the opportunity Saturday to recognize another Terps coaching legend and his ACC title team.
“It's family weekend in College Park,” Locksley said. “We also are bringing back another coaching legend here in Bobby Ross and his 1984 team will be honored this Saturday. It's always great to bring back family to our program and to the university and we're excited about being able to go out and put on a great show for our alumni and our families as they come to visit us here.”
The Terps are hoping for a better outcome this weekend against the Hoosiers than when they honored Friedgen during a 59-0 loss to Penn State a few weeks ago, and Locksley knows his team’s best chance of avoiding a similar fate starts with slowing down red-hot Indiana freshman quarterback Michael Penix Jr.
“It starts with their quarterback. Penix is a lefty who I am very familiar with having recruited him some. The offense goes through him,” Locksley said.
While Locksley’s main priority is stopping Penix, he has also been impressed with Indiana’s skill players such as running back Stevie Scott III and wide receiver Whop Philyor. After watching Scott rush for a career-high 164 yards last weekend against Rutgers, the sophomore has the Terps head coach’s attention, as does Philyor, who is leading the conference in receptions per game and receiving yards.
“They have a big back that’s a little bigger than the backs we’ve faced the last few weeks,” Locksley said. “He’s a downhill runner and a hard tackle. We have to do a really good job of being physical and playing with great leverage and wrapping him up to get him on the ground, which we didn’t do a great job of last week. And then they have a lot of wide receivers out there who have opportunities and have made a lot of plays the last few weeks. For us, again, it’s affecting the quarterback. It starts with stopping the run and then trying to get pressure on the young quarterback to get him off his spot and not allow him to just sit back there and pick us apart.”
Knowing who to stop on Indiana’s offense is one thing, but being able to stop them with a defense that allowed Purdue to score 40 points while gaining 547 yards of total offense last week is a different story.
Not pleased with their effort against the Boilermakers, the Terps’ defense is looking to show vast improvement on Saturday versus the Hoosiers.
“We’re working on fundamentals, you know, tackling, our alignments, doing our jobs the right way and knowing how our jobs can change in certain instances throughout the game,” Terps sophomore linebacker Ayinde Eley said. “When you look at the (Purdue) game, we missed a lot of tackles and we have to fix that, which we’re working on. Once that gets [fixed], we’ll be good. I know the potential of this defense can be really good but I can’t wait until we get it right and show it.”
With yet another blow to the Terps’ secondary striking this week as starting cornerback Tino Ellis was ruled out for the rest of the season with an upper-body injury, Maryland will be forced to play young defensive backs such as Lavonte Gater, and Deonte Banks as it scrambles for answers. But Eley isn’t concerned about whether or not the Terps’ young players will step up and is expecting a bounce-back week.
“We’re going to fix it this week and get right and get back on track because the defense has a lot of potential and everybody can contribute to this defense,” Eley said.
Ellis is not the only Terps starter that’s banged up. Starting running back Anthony McFarland, who had just four carries for 4 yards in last weekend’s loss to Purdue, is day-to-day with a high-ankle sprain he suffered more than a month ago against Temple, as the Maryland staff works to limit his practice reps and get him healthy enough to play.
“We’re taking him day-to-day,” Locksley said. “We’ve tried to allow him to heal and get healthy and we’re going to try that again this week. We’ll see how he feels going into the game, but it’s been frustrating for [McFarland], but it’s not for him not wanting to or not trying. So, his lack of production is a direct correlation to the high-ankle sprain. He’s day-to-day. We’ve done this for the last four weeks, we’ve been day-to-day with him. There have been good days and bad days, and we had some of the swelling out and we’ll see how he feels on Saturday.”
Starting quarterback Josh Jackson is also still working his way back from an injury and is not expected to play this week against Indiana. However, Jackson did increase his practice workload this week and his return appears imminent.
Redshirt junior Tyrrell Pigrome will make another start at quarterback for Maryland, with sophomore Tyler DeSue serving as his backup.
Kickoff in College Park between Indiana and Maryland is scheduled for 3:30 p.m. EST. The game will be broadcast on the Maryland Sports Radio Network and televised on the Big Ten Network. The Terps’ captains this week are Antwaine Richardson (out for the year with an ACL injury, but Locksley commended him this week for his leadership in the locker room and off the field), Tyrrell Pigrome, and Chance Campbell.
