[Baltimore Sun] Maryland football’s weaknesses laid bare in crushing loss to Rutgers | TAKEAWAYS
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As poorly as the season has gone for Maryland football, it’s been a breakthrough for Tai Felton.
With six catches in Saturday night’s 31-17 setback to Rutgers at SECU Stadium, the wide receiver set a program record for receptions in a season with 86, eclipsing the previous mark of 80 held by DJ Moore in 2017. And with 61 yards, Felton’s 1,040 yards this fall moved him ahead of Moore (1,033) for third in school single-season history.
The 6-foot-1, 186-pound senior already ranks third in career receptions with 162 and fifth in all-time touchdown catches with 15. He is on pace to amass 1,248 receiving yards, which would overtake Marcus Badgett’s school record of 1,240 yards set in 1992.
Naturally, those accolades pale in comparison with the Terps’ slide to a 4-6 overall record and a 1-6 mark in the Big Ten. Coach Mike Locksley sounded disappointed that Felton’s achievements are being overshadowed by the team’s troubles.
“We all know that individual awards are good when you are successful as a team, and I’m sure Tai would be the first one to tell you,” he said. “Obviously, he’s a good player for us, a guy that’s made some plays for us. But right now to sit here with four wins and have opportunities in some games, he’d give up some of those yardages and some of those catches to add a few more wins, which we have a chance with two more guaranteed opportunities to continue to extend our play.”
Here are three observations from Saturday night’s loss.
Maryland’s commitment to running the ball lacks, well, commitment
For much of the season, Locksley has stressed establishing the running game to power the offense. Against Rutgers, the Terps strayed from that objective.
In the first half, redshirt junior running back Roman Hemby ripped off two runs of 15 yards each, one of 9 yards, and three of 8 yards each en route to compiling 76 yards on 11 attempts. That amounted to a robust 6.9 yards per carry.
But quarterbacks Billy Edwards Jr. and MJ Morris combined to drop back 21 times in the first half, and the offense manufactured just 10 points while facing a four-point deficit at halftime.
Despite the wide discrepancy in passing and running numbers, Locksley, who replaced offensive coordinator Josh Gattis as the primary play caller, insisted afterwards that the team sought to build around the 6-foot, 208-pound Hemby.
“Trying to emphasize the run game, but when you give up and you get down two scores, to mix the run game in there, the goal wasn’t just to get Roman going, but to get the run game going, and we were able to do it early,” he said. “In the second half, when you start dealing with where you are in the game, it’s hard sometimes to continue to feature and hand the ball off when we’ve got to score enough points. We knew what Rutgers was doing to shrink the game and use up the play clock. Every drive was really important in the second half.”
Hemby was crucial in Maryland’s opening possession of the second half when he turned a short pass from Edwards into a 32-yard gain and carried the ball four times for 9 yards, including a 1-yard touchdown plunge that gave the team what would be its final lead at 17-14. Hemby did not touch the ball again until the final minute, and the offense finished with a run-pass ratio of 25 to 56.
Hemby, an Edgewood native and John Carroll graduate who finished with 16 carries for 87 yards and a touchdown and five catches for 59 yards, declined to question the play calling.
“It’s just the ebbs and flows of how the game went,” he said. “We were making some plays in the air, and we kept going to it, and that’s what football’s about. When the run game is there, we run, and when the pass game is there, we pass. We were just a little unlucky there.”
Billy Edwards Jr. is in a slump
College football players and coaches are fond of saying a season is like two seasons — one involving conference opponents and one involving nonconference foes. The same could be said for Maryland’s quarterback.
Through the first four games, Edwards completed 75% of his passes (102 of 136) for 1,155 yards and eight touchdowns. During the recent stretch of five losses in six games, the redshirt junior connected on 60.1% (166 of 276) for 1,700 yards and seven touchdowns.
The most glaring department is interceptions. After throwing just two in the first four games, the 6-3, 222-pound Edwards has been intercepted seven times in the past six games — one of which was returned for a touchdown in a loss at Minnesota on Oct. 26. He also coughed up two fumbles caused by sacks that were returned for scores in losses to Northwestern and No. 1 Oregon on Oct. 11 and Nov. 2, respectively.
Edwards was intercepted once in the fourth quarter of Saturday’s game, but blame could have been shared by junior wide receiver Octavian Smith Jr. for allowing the pass to glance off his hands and get corralled by senior defensive lineman Jordan Thompson. Locksley disputed the notion that Edwards is regressing.
“Throwing the ball is timing and spacing,” he said. “Some of it’s on the quarterback, some of it’s on the receivers being where they need to be, and some of it’s on the protection. As I’ve said before, quarterbacks get a lot of credit, and they also get a lot of blame. We’ve got to be able to hit the open guys at times, and we didn’t do that today, and I think anybody that knows him knows that he will hold himself accountable for those types of plays.”
Hemby also defended Edwards and the pass offense.
“I don’t think it’s regressed as much as us not executing as much as we can,” he said. “That’s something we harp on every day in practice, getting those connections working with our timing and everything. We’re one person away from making big plays every play. So I think it’s just something we’ve got to keep working on, and if it clicks, it clicks.”
Getting off the field is a problem for the defense
Rutgers finished the game converting 6 of 14 third downs. That stat was much uglier in the first half.
In the first two quarters, the Scarlet Knights turned 5 of 9 third downs into first downs, including four on a 17-play, 75-yard drive that consumed 8:45 off the clock and ended with a touchdown pass for a 7-3 advantage. They also went 2-for-2 on fourth down in the first half and 3-for-3 for the entire game.
In addition to that 17-play series, Rutgers scored touchdowns on an 11-play drive that took 6:02 and an eight-play march that took 4:26. Three touchdown possessions chewed up 75 yards, and the fourth went 71 yards.
But Maryland junior outside linebacker Kellan Wyatt said exhaustion was not a factor in the defense’s inability to get off the field on third and fourth downs.
“It was all on us,” the Glen Burnie native and Archbishop Spalding graduate said. “There wasn’t anything we saw on tape that we didn’t see in the game. They were pretty consistent on what they were doing, and I give it to them. They were locked in today, and they focused on details. We didn’t, and Rutgers had the better night.”
For the season, opponents have converted 41.3% of their third downs (57 of 138) against the Terps. In Big Ten play, conference foes have turned 47.4% of those situations (45 of 95) into first downs.
“That’s kind of been for us on the defensive side of the ball, our inability to play well on third down has allowed teams to sustain or continue drives, and we’ve got to get off the field,” Locksley said. “It’s our job to get off the field on third down, and we weren’t and haven’t been able to do it. It’s come back to hurt us some in critical situations. There have been times we get off the field, but in critical situations, we’ve got to find a way to get off the field.”
Have a news tip? Contact Edward Lee at eklee@baltsun.com, 410-332-6200 and x.com/EdwardLeeSun.
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