When ACC commissioner John Swofford addressed reporters last week, he mentioned how the NCAA had done away with the Division I-A and Division I-AA designations.

Then he paused a moment to remember exactly what the new names were, before politely asking the assembled media to pick up on the updated terminology he hadn't entirely grasped yet.

Groovy, man.

Welcome to the NCAA's latest self-created situation that will only wind up being a greater nuisance -- the era of the "Football Bowl Subdivision" and the "Football Championship Division." And you don't even need a cover sheet for a TPS report to use the new terms.

In all seriousness, there was no obvious reason to change the appellations other than to remind folks the big boys don't have a playoff system. Is "I-AA" a denigration to those quality teams in the Big Sky and Southern conferences? It never really seemed like it, and an awkward new name isn't going to enhance the quality of play or respect for recent I-AA champions Appalachian State, James Madison and Delaware.

More importantly, it was an understood line of demarcation. The only thing remotely befuddling about the difference in divisions was figuring out which teams were in the process of moving from one to the other (next up to the former Division I-A: Western Kentucky in 2009).

From a strictly media point of view, there are three options in how to handle this:

1. Stick with the old, familiar terminology and technically be wrong all the time.

2. Wholeheartedly embrace the new monikers at the risk of utter confusion for readers who haven't heard of the inane name changes.

3. Use the new terms but also refer to either division as “the former Division I-A or I-AA," thus cluttering up something that was expressed in far more elegant terms in the past.

Oh well. Guess it's time to start thinking about Football Bowl Subdivision member Maryland's season opener against longtime Football Championship Subdivision member Villanova on Sept. 1.

-- Patrick Stevens

It's no time to fret: There's just two and a half months before basketball practice commences in College Park.

For now, though, things are kind of slow. Players stay on campus, working out, helping with camps, playing pickup and attending classes during Maryland's first summer session. But they have the second half of the summer -- roughly six weeks -- to themselves.

So it is a bit quiet. Jason Yaman, Maryland's superb sports information director, says the only players still hanging around campus are Landon Milbourne, Bambale Osby and James Gist (the latter just back from a stint with the United States team at the Pan Am Games in Brazil). The word is also that Jerome Burney -- who redshirted last year after an early foot injury -- was back to full health while he was still on campus.

The Terps' schedule is due out in about three weeks. The ACC releases the entire league schedule at once, but Maryland is already locked into the CBE Classic (up to four games). One of the teams in Maryland's regional of that event is Hampton, the same team the Terps beat in last year's opener.

An ACC/Big Ten visit from Illinois and a trip to Charlotte in early January are other nonconference highlights.

As for conference games, Maryland will play Boston College (the first of which is Dec. 9 in a likely conference opener), Duke, Virginia, Virginia Tech and Wake Forest twice; Georgia Tech, Miami and North Carolina only on the road; and Clemson, Florida State and N.C. State only at Comcast Center.

Other scheduling nuggets from throughout the country:

* Georgetown will play at Old Dominion on Nov. 28 in rematch of the Monarchs' upset victory last year. The Hoyas will also play host to Radford.

* As anticipated, the Florida-Ohio State national title game rematch will be the weekend before Christmas -- Dec. 22 in Columbus. Of course, Joakim Noah, Al Horford, Greg Oden, Mike Conley Jr., Corey Brewer, Daequan Cook, Taurean Green and Lee Humphrey won't be there, but at least Billy Donovan will be present in all of his starched shirt glory.

* North Carolina and Nevada have agreed to a three-game series -- with one of those games at the Lawlor Center in Reno. Too bad the likes of Nick Fazekas and Brandan Wright won't get to face each other.

* Oral Roberts and Oklahoma State will meet on Dec. 20 in Oklahoma City, the first meeting of head-coaching brothers. Sean Sutton coaches at Oklahoma State, while Scott Sutton is in charge at Oral Roberts.

* Eastern Kentucky will visit Duke on Nov. 25, in a game you can be all but certain will be televised by some national outlet because Duke is involved.

-- Patrick Stevens

First of all, it's time to acknowledge an error two eagle-eyed colleagues of mine found from the other day.

The Sean Sutton-Scott Sutton matchup this season when Oklahoma State and Oral Roberts play will not be the first meeting of coaching brothers. It's a silly error on this end, since Georgetown (John Thompson III) and Ball State (Ronny Thompson) met last season.

The lesson, of course, is to remain wary of press releases at all times.

As for another scheduling tidbit, according to the Florida Times-Union, Atlantic Sun member Jacksonville will be visiting D.C. in early December to play at American (Dec. 7) and Georgetown (Dec. 9).

-- Patrick Stevens

Hey, how about some more basketball items while girding for the joy of football practices popping up throughout the college game in the next few days?

* A couple bits of coaching news from the Left Coast. Washington locked up Lorenzo Romar through 2015-16. If nothing else, it's a sign the Huskies plan to remain among the Pac-10's best for a while.

Meanwhile, UNLV coach Lon Kruger underwent sextuple bypass surgery yesterday in Las Vegas, less than five months after leading the Runnin' Rebels to a 30-7 season. I'm no heart surgeon, but six bypasses does not sound like a pleasant way to spend a day. Fortunately, Kruger apparently is doing well and could be released from the hospital next week.

* A notable note from College Park, where sophomore-to-be Landon Milbourne will travel to Holland and Belgium with a group calling itself the East Coast All-Stars organized by Basketball Travelers Inc. and coached by Stony Brook assistant Guy Rancourt.

This might be a rather liberal use of the term "All-Star" -- Alvin Bray (St. Joseph's), Steven D'Agostino (Saint Rose), Bryan Davis (Texas A&M), Anthony Farmer (Rutgers), Jaron Griffin (Rutgers), Brett Harvey (Loyola), Josh Linthicum (Bucknell), Zach Peacock (Georgia Tech), Rio Pitt (Stony Brook) and Perry Stevenson (Kentucky) will also be on the squad -- but the experience certainly can't hurt Milbourne, who will assume a greater role this season with five members of last year's rotation gone.

The forward was lost in the shuffle last year, in large part because he backed up D.J. Strawberry. His averages (1.0 points, 0.8 rebounds, 4.8 minutes in 16 games) were what those in the meteorological community might describe as “trace."

You might not remember much about him, since he played in only five of the Terrapins' last 18 games. But he also did this in garbage time against St. John's, and since I was sitting directly under the Madison Square Garden basket at the time, I can attest it was pretty cool.

* This is only slightly college-related and very much schedule-related (a theme for the week), but the Charlotte Bobcats will finish with 25 of 38 on the road next season. No, the Bobcats aren't playing college teams, though their rosters hints they are a college all-star team rather than an NBA outfit. Instead, their arena is booked solid in March with college basketball commitments -- the Division II CIAA (hello, Bowie State!) tournament, the ACC tournament and the NCAA tournament East regional. The Bobkittens manage to squeeze just one home date in 11 games between March 8 and March 29.

Good luck, Sam Vincent. You’ll need it.

* Was it wrong to wonder if the poor fellow killed in a dog attack at actor Ving Rhames' home had to stare down some angry four-legged creatures wearing Ron Mexico jerseys in his final moments?

-- Patrick Stevens

With the start of Maryland football practice about 48 hours away (and the media invited in to watch the first five periods each day after being evicted in the middle of last season), here's an exchange at last week's ACC Kickoff event between myself and coach Ralph Friedgen, whose sense of humor remains very much intact.

Everyone should hope the scenario discussed never comes to fruition:

PS: Is there any way that you would play two quarterbacks?

Friedgen: Yeah. Yeah. I'm gonna do what I gotta do to win games -- even if you had to play quarterback. If you could win for us, we'd get you back in school. [Laughter from reporters]

PS: Well, you can be sure neither of those is going to happen -- me going back to school or me winning games for you. [More laughter from reporters and Friedgen]

Friedgen: Wouldn't that be something if we had a Diamondback reporter who was our quarterback?

PS: That would be something.

Friedgen: Then he could rate himself at practice. [More laughter]

PS: And he could watch practice. [More laughter]

-- Patrick Stevens

A relatively ho-hum day in College Park, where the quarterback battle between Jordan Steffy, Josh Portis and Chris Turner started off with ... well, without much gusto.

"I thought Portis was a little better with his footwork," Friedgen said. "I wasn't overly impressed with his arm. Neither he or Chris had as good a day as I was hoping they'd have. Jordan was fine; he made a couple mistakes in the running game I was surprised at. It's nothing that can't be fixed."

The split of snaps wasn't too surprising. For every 15 snaps, Steffy took six (with the first team), Portis and Turner took three each (with the second team) and Bobby Sheahin and Jamarr Robinson split three snaps with the third team.

It was also quite muggy, and the forecast for more of the same has Friedgen thinking about pushing practice back later in the week. On Wednesday, with temperatures expected need triple digits, the Terps could shift practice to 7:30 p.m. to stay out of the afternoon sun.

Of course, there was still time for a few classic Ralph-isms. Freshman defensive lineman Dion Armstrong was the only player to cramp up.

"He's from Georgia," Friedgen said. "He thinks he's from Maine."

It was probably not the best day to be evaluating freshmen, although receivers Torrey Smith and Tony Logan stood out to Friedgen. Lansford Watson played some at the slot, but Ralph followed that mention with an overall comment on his newcomers.

"Those freshmen, their heads are spinning with one day of stuff," Friedgen said. "By the end of the week, they'll look like 'The Exorcist.' "

-- Patrick Stevens

If there's something Maryland coach Ralph Friedgen really wants to get out of camp, it's to emerge unscathed from the injury bug.

As practice got underway yesterday, only cornerback Richard Taylor (ACL suffered in spring practice) was shelved. Friedgen cut down on things a bit, opting not to force players to go through his usual "do-it-until-you-get-it-right" approach.

That figures to continue with scorching temperatures expected throughout the week. If the Terps can somehow beat the heat -- and not beat themselves up, as they are wont to do -- they might be able to make it to the Sept. 1 opener against Villanova with only Taylor stuck to the sideline.

Some other tidbits from College Park and beyond:

* With defensive lineman Omarr Savage ineligible and tight end Devonte Campbell off to Hargrave Military Academy, the Terps appear to be at 85 scholarships on the button, the NCAA maximum. When Friedgen signed a 25-man class and also added previous signee Jamarr Robinson and Southern California transfer Antwine Perez, there figured to be a severe scholarship crunch. Instead, Savage, Jared Gaither and Barrod Heggs were all academic casualties, and freshmen Carl Russell and Joe Vellano will both grayshirt and presumably pop up for spring practice.

A similar situation wouldn't be a surprise next year; only 13 of the Terps' scholarships are allocated to seniors.

* Poor Duke. The Blue Devils lost linebacker Michael Tauiliili after he was arrested on Saturday for, among other things, driving while impaired and carrying a concealed weapon, according to the Raleigh News and Observer. Coach Ted Roof, who can't catch a break with key losses, suspended Tauiliili indefinitely.

* In college hoops, Temple announced its nonconference schedule. The Owls will play in a tournament in Puerto Rico with psuedo-local Virginia Commonwealth the week before Thanksgiving and will also face Duke on Jan. 9 at the Wachovia Center. I'm taking bets now on which four-letter network will be televising that one.

* Any time is a good time for a college basketball coaching change, apparently. East Carolina reassigned former Virginia guard and Virginia Tech coach Ricky Stokes and promoted former Virginia Commonwealth and Chattanooga coach Mack McCarthy to take his place. In case you're keeping score at home, that's 59 jobs that have changed hands since the close of the season

-- Patrick Stevens

Given the timetable Maryland coach Ralph Friedgen has placed on his quarterback situation — "It'll be at least a week, maybe a little bit more," he said yesterday -- it probably won't leave much time for reserve Josh Portis to make an impression.

Even still, Portis has high marks for Friedgen and what playing at Maryland will mean for him in the long-term. Portis, you might remember, began his career at Florida before transferring after one season. He sat out last year because of NCAA rules, and at minimum would probably be a superb change-of-pace if junior Jordan Steffy retains the job.

"If you learn this offense, you'll be good for the next level," Portis said. "Also with his program having so many rules, I think coming out of this program you'll be a better person in life as well. I think coach Friedgen puts more of an emphasis on that, being a person and being a good person and being successful in life as well."

There's also some praise for Friedgen's priorities, notably education. Although the Terps lost three players to academics since last season -- Barrod Heggs, Jared Gaither and Omarr Savage -- Portis notices a distinct emphasis put on the books by the big fella.

"He puts so much value on education and getting a degree, and some programs don't do that,” Portis said. "Florida, they don't really value education like they do here. Him being the way he is, I think it's better off for us in the long run."

-- Patrick Stevens

Probably the biggest news in college sports today is the pending promotion of assistant Dino Gaudio to take over for the late Skip Prosser at Wake Forest, according to the Winston-Salem Journal. Gaudio is a long-time assistant to Prosser -- going all the way back to a Wheeling, W.Va., high school -- and has head coaching experience at Army and Loyola.

Even though neither of those stints can be described as successful -- 68-124 isn't good even if it is at a pair of schools generally regarded as coaching graveyards in the last 25 years -- it can't be much of a surprise that Wake stayed in-house with its most experienced assistant for the gig.

One thing's for sure: Gaudio will be one of the best-dressed coaches in the country, even giving Armani-clad Rick Pitino a run for his money. Of course, he'll encounter Sidney Lowe and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat twice a year, and those meetings will be fashion events all by themselves.

* Could the college game beat the NFL into China? It seems possible, especially if Oregon and Boise State can iron out a ton of logistical issues for a potential game in Beijing in 2009. There's still a long way to go, though a meeting between a team wearing outrageous gold threads and the Kings of the Smurf Turf would be cool pretty much anywhere.

* Michigan and Utah will open next season at the Big House; so says the Detroit Free Press and countless other Michigan outlets. There's also a basketball aspect to this, with a home-and-home between the schools set up for 2009 and 2010.

It's a shame it will have to be Michigan and Utah from those years instead of a retro game. Alas, there is no way to get back the eligibility of 1993 Michigan to face 1997 Utah; heck, Chris Webber wasn't even eligible then for the Wolverines.

* There must be something about the Research Triangle that appeals to former Nebraska quarterbacks. Joe Dailey has gone from the QB at Nebraska to the starter at North Carolina to a wideout for the Tar Heels. Now, former Huskers quarterback Harrison Beck is getting a shot at the N.C. State. Oh, and he's working in his third offense in three years, according to the Raleigh News & Observer.

* Good grief -- the Great Pumpkin Phil Fulmer is having more problems keeping his players on the field. LaMarcus Coker, Tennessee's top returning rusher, was suspended indefinitely for what the Chattanooga Times Free Press and other outlets have hinted is multiple flunked drug tests. The Great Pumpkin euphemistically refers to it as "a medical situation."

On the bright side, Coker isn't trading his orange jersey for an orange jumpsuit. That's an upgrade for Rocky Top these days.

-- Patrick Stevens

Day Two on the march toward the opener against dreaded foe Villanova was rather mundane in College Park. There wasn't nearly the same buzz in part because the newness was gone, and all the television cameras that popped up for media day have gone back to following car chases or other such irrelevance until the season gets under way.

That just left a handful of issues that will linger throughout the next three weeks -- the heat, special teams, the offensive line and quarterback.

Coach Ralph Friedgen was pleased with the rapid tempo despite the warm temperatures (that will force today's practice to 7:30 p.m.; my personal estimated time of departure from College Park: 11 p.m.). And the kicking possibilities are nowhere near being sorted out, with Obi Egekeze and Travis Baltz in the hunt to take over for Dan Ennis.

Egekeze lost out to Ennis the last two years, but Friedgen seems impressed with his early work. But if he struggles, it's only a matter of time before the Fridge drops a line like, "He's on scholarship, too. He's got to go out and perform like everybody else." That was the Kiss of Death applied to former quarterback Joel Statham after he struggled at Florida State in 2005; two months later he decided to transfer.

While the inexperience at kicker is understandably concerning, the biggest issue Maryland faces is maintaining its thin offensive line. It's bigger than the quarterbacks, the special teams, and anything on defense. Guard Andrew Crummey emphasized last month the Terps had a good top seven. He didn't bother talking about anything beyond that, which was probably for the best.

Ralph was more blunt yesterday, though he hinted true freshmen Bruce Campbell and Maurice Hampton could play a role by season's end.

"We don't have a lot on the second team," Friedgen said. "I'm just telling you, we have a long way to go there. The cupboard is thin right there. When you get past [Phil] Costa and [Jack] Griffin, we're probably dealing with guys that are hard to win with."

The meaning is unmistakable: It doesn't matter who is playing quarterback -- if the offensive line is injury-riddled and porous, it will be an excruciatingly long season for the Terps.

Of course, getting the quarterback job sorted out is important, too. Presumptive starter Jordan Steffy threw an interception in practice yesterday but was otherwise fine, and Josh Portis looked a bit better to Friedgen with the option installed. Chris Turner was improved as well, buoying the Fridge's spirits.

"I really feel good about the quarterback situation once it all works its way it out," Friedgen said. "I think we have some kids there that are pretty good and are going to be pretty good. We just have to go out and do it. Until that happens, no one's gonna believe me."

-- Patrick Stevens

It was admittedly a nuisance to be stuck in abandoned College Park past 10 p.m. last night waiting for Maryland to finish up its drills for the day. But it would be awfully hard to take issue Ralph Friedgen for pushing practice back more than three hours.

At 5 p.m. -- usually in the middle of an afternoon practice session -- the temperature on the grass was 107 degrees; on the field turf portion (fake grass with bits of rubber embedded in the "roots") of the facility, it was 126 degrees.

By 7, the heat index made it feel like a balmy 102 degrees. That was good enough to get a workout in, and afterward the Fridge was downright jolly at times.

At one point, Ralph wondered how we killed the time between watching the first five periods of practice and talking to him nearly two hours later.

Ralph: Where'd you all go, Cornerstone?

Stevens: Is there like a special line that comes straight in here, like a Cornerstone-type Batphone that lights up?

Those familiar with the relatively recent history of the College Park police blotter remember the Halloween 2005 brawl at Cornerstone that featured several football players and eventually led to three players being suspended a game each.

Anyway, there was more of the usual camp talk. Tailback Keon Lattimore is looking faster. The second-string offensive line is still capable of giving Friedgen nightmares. Linebackers were permitted to apply pressure yesterday for the first time, flummoxing inexperienced tailback Da'Rel Scott. And the defense is way ahead of the offense.

"That's not unusual," Friedgen said. "We've only installed 2,000 plays in three days. There's a little confusion going on and it's hard to be aggressive when you're thinking."

Friedgen himself is holding up as well as can be expected. He had a lingering infection after a boating adventure in Charleston, S.C., last month, and endured a 102-degree fever the four days before camp started. Meanwhile, he hasn't seen much of his family this week; wife Gloria is up in New York.

"I think she left me," Friedgen deadpanned.

The Terps will be back to their usual start time today, though the Fridge is wary of thunderstorms.

Oh, and one other thing; the Terps are officially at 85 scholarship players (the NCAA maximum) on the button. There could be an academic casualty or two yet, but there isn't a roster crunch to worry about.

-- Patrick Stevens

Another nugget from Maryland's practice yesterday: Redshirt freshman Evan Eastburn played some at center as Ralph Friedgen tries to figure out where he's going to procure the pixie dust needed to create two or three more reliable offensive linemen.

Unfortunately, this is football and not Fantasia. The Fridge is more than concerned about line depth, and he has every reason to be with only six guys who have actually played college snaps at offensive line on the roster.

Elsewhere in the conference ...

* Winston-Salem Journal columnist John Delong approves of the hiring of assistant Dino Gaudio to replace the late Skip Prosser at Wake Forest. Who knows if Gaudio will work out, but there was really no way Wake could have gone outside its program given the timing and nature of the job vacancy. Gaudio also stood the best chance of anyone of salvaging the stellar recruiting class Prosser pieced together before dying of an apparent heart attack last month.

* Virginia Tech's Ike Whitaker is back with the Hokies after checking into rehab after last season. His is not the perfect story, as the Roanoke Times details, but it appears the sophomore quarterback is in better shape to make a contribution to Tech than in the past.

* An ongoing saga in South Florida is the future of the Orange Bowl. Not the game, but the rickety old stadium. Reliable Mr. Press details a situation that has been percolating for some time. Miami has a lot of history at the off-campus OB, but the stadium is dilapidated and situated in a lousy neighborhood. More money can be made from parking and concessions up the road at Dolphins Stadium. This could turn out to be the last year the stadium is a regular college football venue, which leaves me sort of excited to visit when Maryland plays Florida International there on Sept. 8.

* The first scrimmage of Tom O'Brien's first camp at N.C. State left him grumbling about inconsistency, according to the Raleigh News & Observer. When the positives are improved tackling and an injury-free session, you're probably trolling pretty hard for reasons to be upbeat.

* Georgia Tech ranked last in kickoff return yardage yielded among 119 major college teams last year, so it is a sensible thing for the Yellow Jackets to be working on this month. Toss in the new kickoff rule -- they’ve been moved back five yards to the 30, a decision that will severely decrease the number of touchbacks -- and allowing 26.98 yards a return again would be even costlier for Chan Gailey's bunch.

-- Patrick Stevens

If there's one time Byrd Stadium is guaranteed to be a bit crazy, it is the Sept. 13 game against West Virginia.

Athletic department officials announced a sellout for the game, the last between the two teams until at least 2010. West Virginia, which has pummeled Maryland two straight years, is going off the Terrapins' schedule the next two years in favor of a home-and-home with California.

Just a gut feeling, but it also figures to be the first (and perhaps only) time Maryland dons its alternate black home uniforms. Lots of fans love them; for me personally, it just evokes scary memories of the ill-fated Ron Vanderlinden Era (though I remain a bit of a sucker for the helmet from the same four-year span.

-- Patrick Stevens

After a few days of keeping an eye on the quarterbacks at Maryland's practice, today was the time to take attendance.

There were a couple absences.

Redshirt freshman tailback Pha'Terrell Washington is not in camp with the Terrapins in order to focus on his summer classes, coach Ralph Friedgen said. Meanwhile, redshirt freshman free safety Taji Thornton has not practiced during camp. The status of both players will be ascertained by the start of the season.

Friedgen can only bring 105 players into camp per NCAA rules, so it would make sense to believe he would have anyone around who he thinks could possibly help early this season.

Cornerback Richard Taylor (ACL) isn't at practice or in meetings, though he is performing rehab at the Terps' complex, because he won't be available for the Sept. 1 opener against Villanova. Safety Antwine Perez isn't around either because he cannot play this season after transferring from Southern Cal.

(A recent exception to this was quarterback Josh Portis last season. Even though he couldn't play, he still provided a valuable glimpse at a mobile quarterback on the scout team during camp).

It's not hard to read the tea leaves on this one. At the very least, it's safe to say Friedgen isn't banking on receiving anything from either Washington or Thornton this year.

-- Patrick Stevens

How long does it take Maryland coach Ralph Friedgen to install nearly the entire playbook?

Try a little more than four days.

By the time the Terrapins complete a walkthrough this morning -- and before the fifth practice of camp -- they'll have 95 percent of the offense in.

"I did it this way last year and it saturates them," Friedgen said. "The older kids are doing pretty good. The young kids, you almost concede they're going to be done."

The big fella will get those guys some looks in Saturday's scrimmage, the first of camp. It seems like Friedgen would like to figure out soon who among the freshmen will be able to help him out. Among those routinely praised this week: Wideout Torrey Smith and fullback Taylor Watson.

The kicking battle is progressing between Obi Egekeze and Travis Baltz, but Ralph is most impressed with the kickoffs of Chris Roberts. He'll be an interesting player to watch because of the new kickoff rule that shifts those plays back five yards. And interestingly enough, special teams coordinator Ray Rychleski said yesterday Roberts routinely gets his kickoffs down to the 5.

Another special teams unit worth keeping an eye on is the field goal block team. They got ahold of couple kicks the other day, and have been pretty chippy early on in camp.

"We really don't want them going that hard," Friedgen said. "It's amazing. Maybe it's like your kids. Tell them what not to do and they'll do it. 'Stay up and don't go hard' and they go hard as hell. 'Stay off the ground' and they tackle."

Friedgen keeps saying senior Keon Lattimore looks like he's faster than in the past, which can only bode well for the Terps' backfield committee. He is also high on redshirt freshman Da'Rel Scott, though still concerned with his ability to pick up blocking schemes and the like. Scott's injury near the start of spring practice cost him valuable reps, and it could hold him back this month as well.

There's no real news on the quarterback front, except that junior Jordan Steffy remains where he has been for the last eight months -- at the head of the pack.

Friedgen also continues to fire off some amusing comments, such as an exchange about walk-on fullback Steven Pfister (pronounced FIST-er)

"I keep calling him Feaster," Friedgen said. "I told him, when you start doing something, I'll remember your name."

-- Patrick Stevens

There is little doubt Maryland coach Ralph Friedgen will call out his players in the media if he thinks they need a little nudge.

He did it with a glimmer of subtlety on Monday when he said junior defensive lineman Trey Covington needed to get better after two solid seasons. There wasn’t even a hint of that when he spoke about junior wideout Isaiah Williams yesterday.

"He's got a lot of potential, but he really has to get a lot more physical if he's going to play for us," Friedgen said. "I'm to the point where if he can't block anybody, I'm going to play somebody else. I think he's a talent and I think he runs decent routes. He has to catch the ball over the middle and he's not great at that, either. Right now, I'd say he's going to play on third down. I'm going to play somebody else on first and second down. To me he's got to be a lot more physical. We had a blocking drill today and I didn't see him really show me he wanted to do it."

If ever there's a passage that needs no interpretation, that is it.

Friedgen proceeded to rattle off some guys who have impressed him, like freshmen Quinton McCree and Torrey Smith, as well as redshirt freshman Adrian Cannon.

"I know Adrian will block you," Friedgen said. "He's not as fast as Isaiah. He was our best playmaker in spring, and that was even with Darrius [Heyward-Bey]."

Williams had 28 receptions for 379 yards and three touchdowns while starting 11 games last year, but there was rarely the threat he'd lose playing time. The Terps had three healthy wideouts remotely capable of producing for most of the season, and it was unlikely any of them would get yanked.

It's a bit different now. Still, Williams is a sharp guy. It would be no surprise if the message sinks in and Friedgen talks about Williams having a great practice or two in the next few days.

-- Patrick Stevens

A few more basketball scheduling tidbits trickled in over the last 24 hours. The ACC will probably release its schedule for all 12 schools sometime next week (it usually happens in the Aug. 15-Aug. 20 timeframe), but here's a couple nuggets that shed some light on some area teams:

* Vermont and former Catholic coach and Maryland assistant Mike Lonergan should probably set up camp inside the Beltway for a week in November. The Catamounts open at George Mason on Nov. 9, then visit Virginia two days later. Then on Nov. 18, Vermont is back in the region to face Jimmy Patsos and Loyola at Reitz Arena.

* The Burlington (N.C.) Times-News has the schedule for Elon. The Phoenix will open Nov. 9 at Virginia Tech and will also visit Virginia on Dec. 22.

* In case anyone cares, the Jackson Hole Star-Tribune has Wyoming's schedule. Check out that Sun Bowl tournament -- Texas-El Paso, South Carolina-Upstate and TBA are the other three teams. Why does TBA seem like a more harrowing foe than South Carolina-Upstate?

-- Patrick Stevens

Maryland shifted into two-a-days yesterday, the first of six doubleheader practices for the Terrapins as they careen toward a Sept. 1 opener against Villanova.

The second session yesterday doubled as the team's first intrasquad scrimmage of camp, and the quarterback situation seems like it is set in a status quo.

Jordan Steffy was 8-for-11 for 113 yards and an interception. Josh Portis was 11-for-13 for 106 yards and a touchdown. Chris Turner was 8-for-13 for 82 yards. By the way, that's the order the three quarterbacks were listed on the stat sheet.

"It went pretty good," coach Ralph Friedgen said. "We had very few penalties. The officials said it was very clean. I think we only had two turnovers. The offense probably did better than I anticipated."

Friedgen said he would look at the tape, but seemed inclined to make a decision soon. Since there has been virtually no frustration expressed about Steffy -- in fact, Ralph went out of his way to promote his game management -- it would appear he's going to be locked in as the starter for the opener sometime soon.

As for some other positions, kickers Obi Egekeze and Travis Baltz both were 1-for-2 on field goal attempts. Tailback Keon Lattimore, who Friedgen insisted for the third time in less than a week looks faster, scored two touchdowns and ran for 21 yards on eight carries; Lance Ball had seven carries for 28 yards and a score.

The Terps had 37 plays for the first team, 40 for the second bunch, 28 for the third group and almost 20 for the fourth team. The big fella actually cut things short, passing on a goal line drill as he saw his players getting tired and one of his few tailbacks forced to line up behind an ultra-inexperienced line.

"People's lives were in jeopardy," Friedgen said. "These guys were turning people free all over the place, and I've only got four running backs. At the end of the game, I just threw the ball because I was afraid of someone getting hurt. That was the least chance of them getting hurt."

A couple guys on offense who did little were Darrius Heyward-Bey and Danny Oquendo, though not much should be read into that. Heyward-Bey only took 15 snaps as Friedgen wanted to see what some younger guys could do.

Defensively, linebacker Dave Philistin and cornerback Anthony Wiseman stood out to Friedgen.

What might be most welcome was the lack of errors. There were no delay of game calls, just one fumbled snap and one substitution mistake for both the offense and defense. Ralph won't like that come September and beyond, but as a starting point it could be a whole lot worse.

The Terps have today off -- sort of. There's no practice, but coaches will still dissect scrimmage film and conduct meetings in the evening. Players have an optional devotional Ralph pushed from 10 a.m. to noon, hoping to improve attendance if he "didn’t infringe on their sleep."

If he REALLY didn't want to do that, he wouldn't have another two-a-day scheduled for Monday.

-- Patrick Stevens

Of all the things in Maryland's offense that athletic quarterback Josh Portis should do well, running the option should be high on the list.

Or so you'd think. Instead, presumptive starter Jordan Steffy seems to be more than his equal in that area as well.

"What disappointed me a little bit about Josh is we're running the option better, but Jordan is running it better than he is," coach Ralph Friedgen said. "That should be his forte. It's little things, it's footwork and it's reads. I told him most of the people are going to make you hand the ball off, but he wants to run it so bad he pulls it anyway and then we have a dead play. It'll come eventually."

This is intriguing on several levels. First of all, any reason to think Portis was going to win this job outright at the start of the season should be pretty much gone. Steffy said from the start that it's his job. While everyone else is being careful not to pass judgment, lest they face the Wrath of Ralph (a potential movie that would probably not star Ricardo Montalban), it's pretty clear Steffy was completely correct.

But if Steffy is running the option better than Portis, chances are Ralph won't bother with a two-quarterback setup depending on the situation to begin the season. You have heard they're all the rage after Chris Leak and Tim Tebow helped collect a national championship last year for Florida -- Portis' old school.

-- Patrick Stevens

Finally, another piece to Maryland's basketball schedule falls into place.

According to the Florida Times-Union, North Florida will be Maryland's opening opponent in the CBE Classic on Nov. 11 at Comcast Center. The Ospreys, a third-year Division I team, ranked 333rd out of 336 teams in the RPI last season, and endured a 22-game losing streak. Yikes!

The other two schools in Maryland's CBE regional are Hampton and Tulsa. Hampton's spot in the regional was already known, while Tulsa (18-11, RPI: 118) is the Terrapins' likely second opponent of the season.

* Then there's further confirmation of a date that's floated around since May. Ohio University will come to Comcast Center on Dec. 12 for a midweek game before exams start. The Bobcats went 18-13 (RPI: 105) last year, which is precisely the type of team Maryland should be playing in its nonconference schedule: A good, solid team unlikely to damage its strength of schedule come March.

For the record, here is a partial nonconference schedule for the Terps:

Nov. 11 vs. North Florida
Nov. 12 vs. Hampton/Tulsa
Nov. 19 CBE Classic semifinals in Kansas City, Mo.
Nov. 20 CBE Classic final in Kansas City, Mo.
Nov. 28 vs. Illinois
Dec. 2 BB&T Classic (opponent TBA)
Dec. 12 vs. Ohio
Jan. 5 at Charlotte

* Here's a game with a great storyline: Michigan travels to Harvard on Dec. 1 as former Wolverines coach Tommy Amaker gets a crack at his former school; so says the Detroit News. Amaker was dismissed last season and landed with the Crimson.

-- Patrick Stevens

Maryland is into its second week of practice today, with coach Ralph Friedgen moving around some of his offensive chess pieces.

He's switched Darrius Heyward-Bey from the Z receiver position to X, which is a fancy way of saying Heyward-Bey is moving from the side with more of the field to the side closest to sideline. Isaiah Williams was switched from X to Z, and the fallout of the move is that Danny Oquendo will likely play in the slot for the most part.

"It's kind of an experiment," Friedgen said. "We're just seeing. We want to be able to move Heyward-Bey around anyway. Darrius would easily learn X as opposed to LaQuan [Williams], who's just struggling to learn Z. If we move Heyward-Bey to X, that gives us a good speed guy into the boundary and a good blocker."

Among the other shifting, redshirt freshman Emani Lee-Odai (normally a Z) is working at slot.

On the injury front, Friedgen said linebacker Rick Costa and cornerback Anthony Wiseman are both trying to move past concussions, though he expects both of them back fairly soon (Costa perhaps as early as this afternoon). Tailbacks Da'Rel Scott and Morgan Green were also absent from the first five periods of practice and Friedgen simply described them as "a little nicked up."

There was also a rundown of the top position battles in camp, notably:

* Right tackle, where Friedgen insisted Jack Griffin is pushing Dane Randolph

* Middle linebacker, where Chase Bullock is trying to fend off Dave Philistin. Bullock said the two were splitting reps at this point.

* LEO, the Terps' hybrid defensive end/linebacker position. Trey Covington and Alex Wujciak seem destined to split time there.

* Quarterback, which is no surprise. One interesting tidbit from practice: During stretching drills, players at each position line up in their order on the depth chart. Likely starter Jordan Steffy was in the front row, but directly behind him was Chris Turner. Florida transfer Josh Portis was third. Read into it what you wish.

-- Patrick Stevens

Or fourth-string quarterback. Your choice on how to describe Bobby Sheahin, the walk-on who decided to transfer to Division III Salisbury over the weekend.

Apparently, it makes quite a difference. With the Terps down to four quarterbacks, coach Ralph Friedgen is going to be forced to cancel a Sept. 14 JV game he scheduled with Hargrave Military Academy.

"It affects us," Friedgen said today. "What disappoints me on that is I had three years with Bobby and he was really starting to develop. He could have been a factor in this thing. He has a strong arm and he can run. I just felt like I put a lot of time and effort into him, and for him to leave like that doesn't help our situation."

The Terps opened the spring with an abundance of quarterbacks, but freshman Jeremy Ricker decided to transfer even before the spring game. Now Sheahin's gone, too, leaving the Terps with Jordan Steffy, Chris Turner, Josh Portis and freshman Jamarr Robinson.

Friedgen was, to say the least, irked. If the decision came down in the offseason, it probably would have been easier to handle.

"Bobby wants to play like everyone else. Bobby's problem is his learning," Friedgen said. "He's going to go to another school now with two weeks before they're going to play their first game. He might have the talent to play, which I think he does. He says 'It's not a pro offense,' I'm sure they're not playing Pop Warner there, either. He could end up sitting on the bench for somebody else, too."

The Terps also lost walk-on linebacker Brian Dickerson. With the two absences, Friedgen plans to bring in walk-on running back Dan Bonato and another undetermined player to fill up the NCAA maximum of 105 guys in camp.

-- Patrick Stevens

The trickle of college basketball schedule continues ...

* Pseudo-local Richmond will welcome Virginia Tech to the Robins Center on Jan. 3, and also brings in South Florida on Dec. 5.

The most amazing thing about the Spiders' slate? That they don't leave the state of Virginia from Nov. 28 to the start of conference play. That is rather surprising for any mid-major other than those with a large supply of major programs within state lines.

-- Patrick Stevens

There's a little more red in Byrd Stadium and a little less Carolina blue.

The temporary bleachers imported each season were green in years past. This year, they're red -- which will go nicely with a handful of extra rails being painted in the same color.

Meanwhile, the Carolina blue roofs athletic director Debbie Yow remains puzzled about are undergoing a makeover as you read this. They're getting a new coat of brown paint, which if not terribly attractive at least isn't a hue of a conference rival.

-- Patrick Stevens

Might as well pass along some lacrosse news to help a hot summer day move a bit faster.

The NCAA awarded the 2008 quarterfinals to Navy and Cornell, in that order. It's the second straight year the quarterfinals landed in Annapolis, and the first time they've been at Cornell since a pair of one-goal thrillers in 2004 (Navy-Cornell and Syracuse-Georgetown).

It isn't quite as friendly a schedule for fans to catch both quarterfinal sites as this past spring (Princeton and Annapolis), but still is a doable trip.

As for 2009, the quarterfinals will head to Hofstra and a site to be determined.

-- Patrick Stevens

Another day in August, another batch of schedules popping up for the college basketball season.

* The Big "Ten" released its conference schedule today, with all 99 league games making it onto a broadcast outlet of some kind. Nearly two-third will be televised on the new Big Ten Network, otherwise known as the official home of Northwestern and Penn State hoops.

* Elsewhere in the Big Ten, Indiana will welcome Kentucky into Assembly Hall for the first time since 1990

* Illinois will play host to pseudo-local Loyola on Dec. 28.

And elsewhere. ...

* Looks like American will open Nov. 10 at St. Francis (Pa.). The Johnstown Tribune-Democrat has a short blurb detailing the Red Flash's schedule.

* Presbyterian, a small South Carolina school beginning a transition to Division I, has signed on for a brutal schedule of paydays, according to The (Columbia) State. Among the stops: Nebraska, New Mexico, Wake Forest, North Carolina State, Georgia and Auburn.

-- Patrick Stevens

Reporters talked in the last hour with Ralph Friedgen, who was in a truly sour post-practice mood for the first time during Maryland's camp.

The big fella seems a bit closer to shaking out his special teams situation. Junior Obi Egekeze has nosed into the lead for the field goal and PAT duties, while true freshman Travis Baltz is the likely choice at punter. Chris Roberts looks to have a firm grasp on the kickoffs job, just as he did entering camp.

The quarterback decision also seems to be near, and it will likely be Jordan Steffy. However, Friedgen wants to see at least a scrimmage-like situation in Thursday's practice and perhaps even Saturday's scrimmage to make a call between Steffy, Josh Portis and Chris Turner.

More to come a bit later; I just got done talking to a couple players in the surprisingly frigid offensive line meeting room. This place is a veritable igloo compared to everything else associated with camp.

-- Patrick Stevens

Last week, veteran Maryland football team manager John Bonacci (an upbeat Staten Island native who is already looking forward to his own personal homecoming game Sept. 29 at Rutgers) described the schedule of a rough practice as 25 frowns, one for each period and an extra one for good measure.

From the sounds of things, today's session had plenty of frowns.

It's usually not a good sign when Ralph Friedgen opens up his post-practice media session with "What's up. Whaddaya got?" That's usually a sign he's like to pass Go and retreat to a place where the media won't badger him with silly questions about cover-2 defenses (yeah, that was me) and other stuff.

If it wasn't obvious enough, he offered up a pretty clear description of the day at practice to a benign question of how things went.

"Defense played very well today," Friedgen said. "Kicked the offense's [butt] today. Outhustled them, out-toughed them. Just kicked them all over the field."

A head coach doesn't like that. An offensive coordinator likes it less. And Ralph, a combination of both, likes it least.

So the tenor of the day was set, though Ralph did concede he is getting closer to making a call at quarterback.

"I'm going to have a mock scrimmage on Thursday," Friedgen said. "I want to give all of them another opportunity to see how they operate with signals without the coaches on the field. We'll run it like a game. Send the plays in, substitutions, plays the situation. ...

"I want to see how they act in that environment. We'll do the same thing Saturday in the scrimmage. I just want to get another look at that and see how that is. I think all our quarterbacks need that game-type situation. They're all fairly inexperienced as far as that's concerned."

So the decision could come Thursday. Or Saturday. Or maybe Ralph will change his mind and get it done even sooner.

But junior Jordan Steffy remains in the lead -- Friedgen reasserted that today -- and the things he's looking for are the traits Steffy is known to possess. In a lot of ways, this quarterback watch is more a guessing game of "when" rather than "who."

As for the Daily Offensive Line Update, Ralph has shifted gears and opted to dispense praise to his starting group and top two reserves. Of course, there aren't too many questions about that bunch; it's the guys in back of them that make you wonder about injuries.

Phil Costa, last year's backup center, has taken his reps at guard this camp, with redshirt freshman Evan Eastburn tried out at center. But that might not hold up, forcing Costa back to center as well as being a reserve guard.

-- Patrick Stevens

The full list of nicknames from the Maryland football team that accompanied today's story did not make a successful journey to Al Gore's Invention. Fortunately, there's this blog to handle such oversights.

Here's the lengthy list. Some are obvious. Some are affectionate. Some are less so.

Lance Ball: Boogie, L-Boogie, Butterball
Kevin Barnes: Deuce, Angry Man, KB
Jared Baum: The Brown Bomber
Tyler Bowen: Boomhauer
Chase Bullock: Lil' 50, C-Bull, Bull City
Scott Burley: Swizz, Bubba, Swizzle
Bruce Campbell: Swoll
Adrian Cannon: AC
Michael Carter: Beetlejuice
Trey Covington: Delay Train, The Predator, Spencer
Andrew Crummey: Crumm Dog
Ian Davidson: Lil' Jermaine
Arnold Davies: A1
Evan Eastburn: Fat Boy, Nanook, Buffalo
Carlos Feliciano: Starlos
Moise Fokou: The Fook
Mack Frost: Frosty
Isaiah Gardner: Zeke
Drew Gloster: Globster
Jason Goode: Goodie, J-Mo Goodie
Morgan Green: CB4, Jail Cell
Jack Griffin: Guns
Dan Gronkowski: The Gronk, Big Gronky
Matthew Harraka: Ha-Rock Star
Jared Harrell: Hellrell
Erin Henderson: Easy, Ace
Darrius Heyward-Bey: DHB, H-Bey, Hey-Bey
Cory Jackson: The Juggernaut
Brandon Jackson-Mills: Mini-Me
Bearthur Johnson: Optimus Prime, Stomachs
J.J. Justice: Which Way Did He Go, George?
Keon Lattimore: K-Latt
Emani Lee-Odai: Bambi
Brendan McDermond: Worm
Dre Moore: King Kong, Big Cuz
Adrian Moten: Six Deuce
Dean Muhtadi: Deano
Colin Nelson: Preacher Man
Lee Oliver: Groundhog Day
Danny Oquendo: Machismo, Salsa King, Lloyd
Olugbemi: Otulaja Bemi
Dave Philistin: Chung Dirty, Philly
Josh Portis: Mystique, The Grinch
Dane Randolph: Gandalf, The Wizard, Great Dane
Kyle Sappington: Houseington, Sapp
Alex Schultz: Schultzie, Lloyd Christmas
Terrell Skinner: T-Skin
Jordan Steffy: J.O.
Richard Taylor: Shutdown
Jaimie Thomas: Bobby, Fat Albert
Chris Turner: Sunshine, Booty
Christian Varner: Bam-Bam, Rico
Brian Whitmore: Towelie, B-Whit
Edwin Williams: Black Ice
Isaiah Williams: Handsome, Precious, Sweetness
LaQuan Williams: Andre 3000
Anthony Wiseman: Wise, Tony
Alex Wujciak: Woo-Woo, The WOO-Jee, Woodchuck
Lamar Young : Sean Kingston

-- Patrick Stevens

Ah, injuries, Maryland coach Ralph Friedgen's timeless bugaboo. It took a week and a half of practice -- more than expected, really -- before those treacherous questions about players absent from practice started to bother him.

I asked about how the absence of tailbacks Morgan Green and Da'Rel Scott -- now gone three days running with no explanation -- was affecting the Terps. After all, they're down to two scholarship running backs and a pair of walk-ons, one of whom was brought into camp this week.

"They're not helping themselves by being out. Hopefully we'll get them back tomorrow," Friedgen said before launching a discourse on the merits of starting running backs Lance Ball and Keon Lattimore.

Official Beat Diva Heather Dinich of the Baltimore Sun didn't consider that to be enough (for good cause), asking where Scott was.

"He's injured," Friedgen groused. "That's all you need to know."

And so it begins. Expect variations of this conversation (most commonly "I told you, I'm not talking about injuries" and occasionally the even more frustrated "When are you going to learn?") to pop up between one and two times a week, depending on a) how many injuries there are; b) the healthy level of paranoia that comes standard with any football coach or person who likes "Risk"; and c) how often the beat writers enjoy to simultaneously do their jobs and ask questions sure to not be answered.

All else is mostly quiet except for the Terps' first surgery of the season (freshman Lansford Watson ... more on him in the next post). Walk-on lineman Paul Pinegar is getting snaps at guard to try to bolster depth and give some opportunities to freshman Bruce Campbell. Sure, getting Campbell -- all 6-foot-7, 285 or so pounds of him -- on the field is a priority. But it's a lot easier to hide a lineman with less physical strength at guard than tackle. Pinegar benches about 300 pounds, while the Terps' starting linemen are all in the 425-pound-plus range.

-- Patrick Stevens

As promised, an update on the first surgery of the 2007 football season in College Park. Someone alert Dr. House.

Lansford Watson had a meniscus tear his junior year of high school, and with a redshirt year likely, the Terps figured it would be a good idea to get the surgery out of the way.

I'll let Ralph Friedgen take it from here.

"He came in, we gave him a physical and noticed it. Course they never tell you about those. What I thought was better for him was let's go ahead and get him operated on, he'll probably be out four-six weeks. He won't be missing class. If we're going to do it, let's do it, so he can at least be functional and get to class. The sooner we do it, the sooner he'll be back. We'll probably redshirt him this year and get him off to a good start academically."

When he does return, expect to see him at tight end rather than wide receiver. He physically dwarfed many of the wideouts (and a guy like Isaiah Williams isn't exactly easy to dwarf), and he'll probably be up to about 260 pounds by this time next year.

"It's typical recruiting," Friedgen said. "I told him when we recruited him that I'd give him an opportunity to play wide receiver. He's out there playing wide receiver. He's 245 pounds and it's not like it's how it was in high school. He has all these DBs all over him and I think he got a little frustrated. I said to him 'I really think you're gonna wind up being a tight end' and he said 'Well, why don't you make me a tight end?' I said 'I said I was gonna give you a shot at playing wide receiver. I was being honest with you.' "

-- Patrick Stevens

Shooting guard Sean Mosley committed to Maryland yesterday, giving the Terrapins their second commit for their incoming class of 2008.

Mosley, a 6-foot-4, 200-pounder ranked No. 62 nationally by rivals.com, joins power forward Terrence Jennings in the Terrapins' class. With two seniors (James Gist and Bambale Osby) and one unoccupied scholarship, Maryland has three scholarships available for 2008 barring a transfer or ineligibility issue.

Mosley, who averaged 21 points as a junior, chose Maryland over Clemson, Florida State and Syracuse.

-- Patrick Stevens

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like the ACC will be releasing its basketball schedule this week. Boo. I was really looking forward to knowing the entirety of the riff-raff who will exchange a likely beating at Comcast Center for a big sack of cash.

Anyway, these tidbits seemed sort of interesting. Well, they're interesting if you really like college basketball.

* Word was passed along late yesterday that Maryland forward Landon Milbourne averaged 13.1 points and 3.6 rebounds for the East Coast "All-Stars" in their recent swing through Holland and Belgium. Somehow, I feel like someone in Luxembourg is feeling dissed for being left out of the fun.

* Local high school coach Levi Franklin (of Fairfax's Paul VI) is joining Robert Morris' staff according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The Colonials also announced their schedule, with trips to Seton Hall and Boston College schedule - but not nearby Pittsburgh. New Robert Morris coach Mike Rice came from Pitt, and Panthers coach Jamie Dixon didn't feel comfortable facing his former assistant.

* Where else outside South Carolina will you find schedule nuggets on USC-Upstate twice in as many weeks? The Spartanburg Herald-Journal has the school's first Division I schedule, with visits to Utah, UNC Greensboro, Cincinnati, Wake Forest, SMU, Duquesne and Iowa State scheduled, plus trips to tournaments in El Paso and Alaska. On the bright side, everyone on the Spartans should have enough frequent flier miles to take a nice trip after the season.

* Reliable friend Mr. Press (via a random New Mexico TV station) says New Mexico and new coach Steve Alford will welcome Bob Knight and Texas Tech to the Pit on Dec. 15. Alford, of course, played for Knight at Indiana on the 1987 national championship team.

- Patrick Stevens

I know this happened a couple days ago, but just wanted to point out the bizarre dismissal of Florida A&M basketball coach Mike Gillespie.

It's been quite the crazy year for coaching changes, now at 61 and counting for the 330-plus Division I schools. There have been reversal of decisions (Creighton's Dan Altman and his flirtation with Arkansas); there's been coaches returning from TV broadcast work (Saint Louis' Rick Majerus, Coastal Carolina's Cliff Ellis, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi's Perry Clark) or flat-out basketball exile (Bowling Green's Louis Orr and UC Riverside's Jim Wooldrige).

There's even been the nastiness unfolding in Middletown, where Ball State and Ronny Thompson have wildly different versions of how Thompson's stormy year unraveled in Muncie, Ind.

But for my money, there hasn't been a series of coaching changes gathered in one league quite so strange as what's happened in the MEAC, and it would be unfair to say it's anything but an amazing coincidence

Two schools - Maryland-Eastern Shore and Norfolk State - decided to make a change at the top and proceeded to hire interim coaches for the next season.

South Carolina State dismissed Jamal Brown after one year for the incredibly vague reason of "violat[ing] the university's obligations under Title IX."

Now comes Gillespie's stalk talk, which is simply weird - and the second straight year the MEAC champion changed its coach before the next season (Hampton's Bobby Collins resigned after the 2006 season).

- Patrick Stevens

Sometimes when you walk into a football team house, you feel like you're entering a hive of some kind.

At Maryland, you get that feeling outside the building as well.

See, all the media types congregate outside the front of the Gossett team house before heading inside to interview Ralph Friedgen and players each day. Except it's been hard not to notice the number of hornets buzzing around trash cans and anything else that might contain a sweet morsel.

That problem might have something to do with the gigantic hornet's nest on the front of the team house. It's in two parts, but they're right next to each other and combined are probably bigger than a football. For you city folk, trust me, that's big by hornet's nest standards. And you can easily see the hornets on the outside of the nest, making it a little scary.

Memo to Maryland: You might want to spring the change to get that sucker removed, especially if there's going to be a tailgate on Sept. 1 in the nearby parking lot. Don't do it for the media; do it for the big-pockets donors who would probably not enjoy those unexpected visitors with their ribs and pit beef.

Anyway, avoiding the hornets is a far more important sport at this point than a lot of other things, like avoiding rankling Ralph Friedgen. (See, rankling Ralph can be a give-and-take deal; the same is not true of the stinging insects).

One thing Friedgen was willing to give yesterday was an idea of what freshmen might play this year, and even make "the varsity" - Ralph's antiquated term for a traveling roster. Tackle Bruce Campbell seems like a safe bet, and punter Travis Baltz is pretty much lock.

As for the rest of the team, offensive lineman Tyler Bowen, wideout Quinton McCree and defensive lineman Dion Armstrong "have a chance." One place a freshman could pop up is fullback, where Taylor Watson or Haroon Brown could push walk-on Steven Pfister for the backup role to Cory Jackson.

- Patrick Stevens

Greetings from Verizon Center, where a nasty case of shortstaffitis has left me covering the Washington Mystics. But I still managed to slip over to see the start of practice today in College Park, and tailback Da'Rel Scott was back to where he should be - on the field.

As for Morgan Green, Scott's fellow redshirt freshman tailback, he was not getting his exercise with all the boys for the fourth straight day.

Despite my absence, there's should be some sort of update coming no later than tomorrow morning. A call at quarterback would accelerate that, obviously, but the sneaking suspicion is this decision won't be made until after today's mock scrimmage and Saturday's not-mock scrimmage.

- Patrick Stevens

The loss of Alex Wujciak, a potential impact player on Maryland's defense, to a knee injury got me thinking about how easy it is to trace a season's fortunes to preseason injuries.

Two years ago, the Terrapins lost a starting left tackle (Stephon Heyer) and a likely contributor at linebacker (Erin Henderson) in camp, and were already without rehabbing tailback Josh Allen. Maryland did about as well as it could do without those guys, but it's not a stretch to say the fully healthy presence of one of those guys (like against Clemson or N.C. State) might have fetched an extra victory, a bowl berth, and a lot less fretting about the direction of the program.

This time last year, the three season-ending injuries the Terps faced were those suffered by reserves Jermaine Lemons, Deege Galt and Jamari McCullough. It's never good to lose depth, and those guys all earned their scholarships with all time they had to put into rehab. But really, last year's Terps were not dealt a bad hand at the start.

And it continued into the season, too. Outside of wideout Drew Weatherly's lingering ailments, Tim Cesa's multitude of concussions (the last occurring just as Cory Jackson was pushing him for more time, anyway) and Donnie Woods' concussion and neck injury, the Terps escaped any serious damage.

(Also worth acknowledging from last year: Josh Wilson's persistent foot problem and Jared Gaither's nerve pain; Wilson never seemed too affected, while Gaither struggled late in the season).

The case can be made Wujciak's loss for the year is a bigger blow than anything the Terps faced all of last season. Teammates and coaches have talked him up for some time, and Ralph Friedgen admitted last week he was awfully tempted to burn the New Jersey native's redshirt in the middle of last season.

He could have played linebacker - where he's played since he picked up the game in third grade - this year, but before camp made a shift to LEO (a nifty acronym for "line-end option" that describes the hybrid position in the Terps' version of the 3-4). That was meant to accomplish three goals:

* Clear the glut at linebacker (which was never stated but implied, since it allowed Dave Philistin to compete for a job in the middle rather than back up Erin Henderson on the weak side. Rick Costa remains Henderson's backup).

* Light a fire under Trey Covington, who started 12 games last year and managed only 1.5 tackles for loss. That objective seems to have been met from the way Ralph has talked about him.

* Find some way for the high-energy Wujciak to get on the field, since he was likely make an impact no matter where he played.

His loss figures to have some sort of trickle-down on all three counts. The Terps won't get to enjoy the play of a guy described by some as a throwback. Covington will try to fend off Lemons (who is coming off his own ACL surgery), a rerun of a competition two years ago.

But the really interesting effect here is the onus it places on either Philistin or Chase Bullock to produce at middle linebacker. There was always the possibility that if both flopped, the Terps would just move Wujciak back to the middle and all would be well. That option is gone.

As it turns out, Philistin has drawn praise throughout camp and has earned a split in first-team reps with Bullock. The pair will follow a middle linebacker heritage this decade that reads like a genealogy lecture or the beginning of the Book of Matthew. There was E.J. Henderson, after whom came D'Qwell Jackson, after whom came Wesley Jefferson.

That's some solid company, and there's no escaping the shadows those three cast on that position.

The loss of Wujciak doesn't help the Terps at LEO. But its greater cost is a decrease in flexibility with the personnel available with the rest of the defense. And if that isn't the definition of a costly preseason injury, I don't know what is.

Just waiting out another football practice in the Stamp Student Union at Maryland. Sitting nearby is Official Beat Diva Heather Dinich.

I figured there'd be some time to hunt more basketball schedules, and stumbled across Youngstown State's schedule in the Warren (Ohio) Tribune-Chronicle.

The reason I found it interesting was that Youngstown State is in the CBE Classic, the same preseason tournament Maryland would play. So I turned to Heather with the news:

"We've got another quadrant of the CBE Classic figured out. Youngstown State versus ...," I said.

The response: Poorly stifled laughter. As usual.

Apparently, my curiosity in piecing together schedules isn't shared by all, though I've grown accustomed to such replies over the last couple years.

But I still tossed out the four teams at one of the CBE regionals were UCLA, Youngstown State, Chicago State and Prairie View A&M.

"I love Prairie State," Heather said distractedly, apparently more interested in writing a story than listen to my ramblings.

"Uh, it's Prairie View A&M," I said drolly, matching her ennui with a bit of know-it-allism.

So there we are. It's fair to say UCLA's bracket isn't all that difficult, since those three schools were a combined 31-59 last year.

Other tidbits (football and basketball) today:

* The Atlanta Journal-Constitution says Georgia Tech will visit Georgia State for the first time in 35 years on Dec. 5. Granted, it's just across town, but it's still an unusual trip for an ACC school to make.

* Wake Forest's Matt Robinson and Micah Andrews are eager to help Wake Forest attempt to repeat as ACC champs after missing the bulk of last year with injuries, the Charlotte Observer observes.

* Duke linebacker Michael Tauiliili was reinstated 11 days after an arrest on charges of driving while impaired and simple assault according to the Raleigh News & Observer. He'll sit out the Blue Devils' opener on Sept. 1 against Connecticut.

* Sticking with the N&O, redshirt freshman T.J. Yates will be North Carolina's fourth opening day starting QB in as many years, beating out Cam Sexton among others. This is a situation likely to be revisited throughout the season.

-- Patrick Stevens

If you think the only interesting people in a football program are coaches and players, you're mistaken.

Some of the best characters never influence Xs and Os, guys like team managers who are constantly shuttling around footballs and other equipment without much of a payoff other than a little scholarship help, a few road trips and a sense of belonging within a larger entity.

I mentioned John Bonacci the other day, and he had some news this morning at practice. He and some of his colleagues took a Managers Night Out yesterday after practice. To the Montgomery County Fair.

The highlight: A monster truck show. You don't see many of them growing up on Staten Island.

There were also some ring-tossing games, with absurdly large stuffed animals as prizes. Not exactly the way to draw in the 18-to-22 set.

"Yeah, what am I gonna do with a pink bunny?" Bonacci asked incredulously.

Reporters only get to watch the first five periods, and the Terps don't do much other than field goal drills you can read too much into. You certainly don't get to see the team go to DEFCON-5 in its preparation for an upcoming opponent, lest some crafty media type decrypts the secret cipher that requires repeated 18-hour days to create.

So what do you get out of that half-hour or so? A chance to make sure everyone's running around like they should be and some thoroughly hilarious conversations about unrelated things like a local fair.

So whenever someone asks, "How is the team looking," I have to laugh. We get a very limited glimpse every day, but in most cases no one will really know until the season starts. Of course, if the top three quarterbacks all get injured, a baboon could tell you things aren't going well. That's not the case here, so save that question for about 10 p.m. on Sept. 1.

-- Patrick Stevens

I had a feeling I'd have a barb coming my way when I entered Ralph Friedgen's office this morning.

I was right.

"Where've you been," Friedgen asked, referring to my absence yesterday from the daily media session. "Did you have a hot date last night?"

"If only," I replied before describing a staff shortage that left me covering the Washington Mystics at Verizon Center.

"Who are they?" Friedgen asked in all seriousness.

Anyway, Morgan Green is still out, and Ralph finally revealed it was a hamstring ailment of some kind. Chase Bullock has also been out a few days, but he's likely to be back sometime soon.

As for yesterday's mock scrimmage, here are the quarterback numbers:

Jordan Steffy: 18-23, 174 yards, INT
Josh Portis: 7-10, 40 yards
Chris Turner: 5-10, 47 yards
Jamarr Robinson: 2-5, 2 INT

At least Robinson had a good completion percentage.

Meanwhile Obi Egekeze made all four field goal attempts. It would be no shock if a kicker is announced along with a quarterback tomorrow.

As the mining the bottom of the depth chart, Ralph said Haroon Brown is making a push for a backup fullback spot. Brown, you might remember, was a last-second addition to the Terps' recruiting class last February.

More in a bit ...

- Patrick Stevens

There aren't many students on campus right now, but the University Book Center is still open to separate visitors from their money.

Trouble is, they might not have gotten a memo about the football depth chart.

This is the time of year new jerseys start popping up in such stores. And two of the choices - No. 1 (linebacker Erin Henderson) and No. 8 (wideout Darrius Heyward-Bey) - were no surprise. Obviously, the names aren't on there, but it doesn't take much of a leap to realize Maryland (like other schools) is capitalizing on a pair of young, personable stars.

There was a third jersey that caught my eye - No. 12. That is the number for Josh Portis, currently a backup to Jordan Steffy (No. 19 on your scorecard). The potential Portis presents with his athleticism sends some Maryland fans into a state of euphoric hysteria, so maybe that's the idea behind the decision.

(A less likely reason: Commemorating the career of former safety Marcus Wimbush).

It just gives an added, unusual dimension to the quarterback battle that hasn't been all that exciting so far this month. Then again, there could be a lot of people who fork over money for a backup's threads.

- Patrick Stevens

The identity of Maryland's starting quarterback could very well be known by day's end.

Well, officially, anyway.

Jordan Steffy was all but anointed the starter by the start of camp, with coach Ralph Friedgen's short timetable and emphasis on managing the game above just about everything else making it the quarterback battle easier to figure out than a 25-piece jigsaw puzzle. Really, it's a surprise it's gone on this long.

But with two weeks left before the Sept. 1 opener against Villanova and a week remaining in camp, now is probably the right time to make the call.

It's odd. On the eve of camp, the three most intriguing potential position battles were at quarterback (Steffy, Josh Portis and Chris Turner), kicker (Obi Egekeze and Travis Baltz) and the hybrid end/linebacker position (Trey Covington and Alex Wujciak).

Since then, the QBs were flung into a nominal competition, Egekeze has hit just about everything he should have after failing to win the job the last two years and Wujciak ripped up his knee and is done for the year.

So what does that leave for tonight to really sort out? Right tackle and middle linebacker. Right tackle Dane Randolph, who seemed to constantly be "really pushing" Jared Gaither (and at times, taking the job altogether) last season, is now being pushed by converted defensive lineman Jack Griffin.

Friedgen seems pleased with this development, and Griffin is part of the group of seven linemen who have been talked up for a month. However, anyone expecting the football version of the transitive property to take root here is probably a bit optimistic. Griffin has never played a down on the offensive line and Gaither is a gargantuan freak of nature now drawing an NFL paycheck. But he might wind up as good as Randolph, which is what matters for this team.

At middle linebacker, it will first be interesting to see if Chase Bullock (ankle) participates in the scrimmage. What's interesting here is that Dave Philistin, who is also battling for the job, has played all three linebacker positions in the Terps' scheme over the last two-plus years.

He played on the strong side the last two years and shifted to the weak side in the spring. Even though he's new to the middle, Philistin understands what goes into each linebacker's role. That could be a vital tool for him this season if he winds up winning the gig.
- Patrick Stevens

Was perusing the Maryland basketball prospectus I picked up in the office the other day and came across the jersey numbers for the incoming freshmen. Here's the list:

- F Shane Walker: No. 2

- C Braxton Dupree: No. 4

- G Adrian Bowie: No. 22

- G/F David Pearman: No. 23

- G/F Cliff Tucker: No. 24

- F Dino Gregory: No. 33

None of the holdovers switched numbers.

In case you're interested, here are the last guys to wear each of those numbers for the Terrapins:

No. 2: D.J. Strawberry (2006-07)

No. 4: Travis Garrison (2005-096)

No. 22: Nik Caner-Medley (2006-06)

No. 23: Mike Jones (2006-07)

No. 24: Parrish Brown (2006-07)

No. 33: Gini Chukura (2006-07)

-- Patrick Stevens

The sound of football pads popping and the smell of grills smoking -- it is hard to come up with a better combination on a Saturday morning in August.

Navy's second preseason scrimmage coincided with a welcome-back barbecue at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium, and the convergence led to quite a nice crowd in Annapolis. Given other program's policies, Navy's scrimmages are one of the few chances for local college football fans to wet their appetites before the calendar nears September.

It was a pretty ominous start for the Mids when center Antron Harper injured his right ankle on the fourth play. Harper had injured the ankle earlier in camp and someone rolled up on it, but he did limp off the field on his own.

After that senior fullback Adam Ballard rolled through the first-team defense with a little too much ease for the coaching staff's liking. Junior quarterback Kaipo-Noa Kaheaku-Enhada was only in for two series, but given his neck injury earlier in the week, that was all Johnson needed to see. Save for the first attempt, which hit a defensive back in the chest but was dropped, Kaheaku-Enhada actually made three pretty nice throws before exiting.

He got off to a slow start, but the story of the day might have yet again been freshman quarterback Ricky Dobbs. There may not be a burgeoning Dobbs for Heisman in 2010 campaign (yet), but it is fair to say right now he's got the inside track to the starting job in '09.

Dobbs finished with 17 yards on seven carries, but he had a highlight-reel quality scamper called back because of a holding penalty. He really impressed with his arm. Dobbs completed three of five passes for 50 yards (and a fourth was dropped). One pass was a stop and go that he dropped in between the beaten corner and converging safety beautifully. He began with the third-string offense, but drove the second-teamers to a touchdown later in the scrimmage.

"I wanted to put him with one of the other groups so to let him play a little bit and see how much he knew -- which is not a lot," said Johnson, in typical expectation-lowering fashion. "Well, he knows some things. He's got ability. He's a good player -- gonna be, I think, if he keeps working."

Dobbs isn't likely to see the field in a real game anytime soon, but more preseason performances like this next fall could have Navy fans salivating for when the Mids trek to Hawaii to begin the '09 season.

-- Corey Masisak

First there was the stated aim of having a starting quarterback named shortly into camp. Then there was the indication a decision would be made after yesterday's scrimmage.

So is it a bit irritating to be less than a fortnight from the season opener without a named QB.

"No, not really," Maryland coach Ralph Friedgen said. "I know you guys probably are. Maybe that's why I do it."

Thanks, big fella.

Just about everyone who gathered after last night's closed scrimmage expected an inevitable announcement: That Jordan Steffy will be under center on Sept. 1. Steffy expects it. The media expects it. And while other players remain careful to say all the right things, well, they probably expect it, too.

Friedgen said a decision is now likely Monday or Tuesday, which means I'm not booking any dinner plans for after Thursday evening's scrimmage/mock scrimmage/practice.

But when the news does come down, it seems pretty clear who will start. As if it wasn't obvious enough before last night, Steffy offered up this nugget:

"I know what I have to take care of," Steffy said. "I've taken every single No. 1 snap with the first team all of camp, and that hadn't even happened in the past with Sam [Hollenbach]. When Sam was starting, I was still taking some of the No. 1 snaps. I'm not concerned about that at all."

- Patrick Stevens

Taking a cruise around the ACC. ...

* Someone gave a 25th-place vote to N.C. State in the AP football poll, piquing the curiosity of the Raleigh News & Observer's ACC blog. The identity of the person with some faith Tom O'Brien can turn around the 3-9 Wolfpack: Dave Goren of WXII-TV in Greensboro, N.C.

* Speaking of State, O'Brien says more than half the starting positions are still up for grabs, according to the Charlotte Observer. It probably isn't very calming when a coach expected more players to emerge, and instead "We just haven't seen that out of this football team," O'Brien said.

* Clemson's defense shined in an intrasquad scrimmage yesterday; so says the (Columbia) State. Interpret the combined work of tailbacks James Davis and C.J. Spiller -- 18 yards on nine carries -- however you'd like.

* Miami is a bit banged up less than two weeks before its opener, with cornerback Randy Phillips and running back Charlie Jones among the injured.

* In a basketball note, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution says Georgia Tech senior Ra'Sean Dickey is academically ineligible for the fall semester, while Lewis Clinch will be back from his ineligibility from last year. And as a throwaway line at the end, Matt Causey -- yes, the same Matt Causey who began his career at Georgetown -- was awarded a scholarship

- Patrick Stevens

Morning football practices -- and there's only one of them left, which can't be good for business at the McDonald's in the student union -- mean carefully calculated choices.

Not with anything football-related. Rather, traffic dictates either leaving early and arriving REALLY early or departing at a more normal time and missing the snippet of practice reporters are permitted to see.

So I wind up in College Park by 8:30 for a 9 a.m. practice and at the practice field before everybody but the kickers, punters and special teams snappers.

I even beat special teams coordinator Ray Rychleski, who trudged in at 8:33.

"You're out here early," Rychleski said.

"I've been here early quite a bit," I replied. "It's all about the excitement of seeing the special teams."

"I like the way you think," Rychleski said approvingly before making his way to the other end of the field.

In fairness, it is the one aspect of the team you can figure something out about when things are open. If a kicker or punter is doing well or not, well, it's hard to hide that reality.

As for another update, cornerback Richard Taylor (ACL) was back at practice for the first time this month. No idea who got bumped from the 105 in camp to make room for him; that'll be a secondary question for Ralph Friedgen in another hour or so. Ralph has all but ruled him out for the opener against Villanova, and I'd be surprised if he played against Florida International the next week.

Meanwhile, linebackers Chase Bullock and Rick Costa were both MIA -- again -- at practice, while wideout Darrius Heyward-Bey walked in with a boot on his right foot just as we were being ushered out of the premises.

- Patrick Stevens

I mentioned the special teams in the last post, and wanted to revisit Ralph Friedgen's semi-anointing of Obi Egekeze as the team's starting kicker.

It was almost exactly a year earlier on a teleconference after the Terrapins' second scrimmage of camp that Friedgen said he would probably be going with Egekeze over Dan Ennis. Things shifted within a week, and Ennis went on to have a fine senior season.

Ralph hedged this one a little bit more, saying he needed to consult with special teams coordinator Ray Rychleski. But from the sounds of things, Egekeze might finally have his shot at the kicking job.

He redshirted his first season, then injured his quadriceps late in camp in 2005. One thing I remember from that season was the almost comical updates each week on how he was getting closer to playing.

Last year, he just plum got beat out for the job.

Everyone will be watching the quarterback position early in the season, and rightfully so. But whether Egekeze can thrive will be another indicator of how good the Terps will be this season.

-- Patrick Stevens

Another day went by without an announcement of Maryland's starting quarterback.

"I haven't finally pulled the trigger on that yet," coach Ralph Friedgen said. "I'm close, but I'm not there yet. I may go to Thursday. I may go to tomorrow. When I feel it's the right time I’ll make the decision."

It's funny that Ralph made a reference to shooting something. I'm certainly just dying to move on to another storyline, if only for a week or so.

Jordan Steffy has taken all the first-team snaps in practice (at least through Saturday, anyway), while Josh Portis and Chris Turner have split the second-team reps.

"I see some value in each quarterback," Friedgen said. "Right now, I'm always trying to find anything that can help our team. I'm not beyond the possibility of playing more than one quarterback. I want to be sure before I make that decision."

The two-QB setup is an interesting possibility, one I first broached last month at the ACC kickoff event. Portis would be a fascinating weapon for a handful of plays a game, especially if put in the same backfield as tailbacks Lance Ball and Keon Lattimore.

There is something to be said for a stable situation, but Ralph seems more concerned about being completely comfortable with his decision. It's hard to blame him.

“I don't think it’s as a big a deal as you guys are making it out to be," Friedgen said. "I think I just like keeping you guys in suspense."

At that, I lifted my arms over my head and wrung my hands. Friedgen seemed mildly amused.

"Keeps you coming to practice," he said.

And that's the most important thing of all for a coach who is afraid the big bad media will spill all his secrets.

-- Patrick Stevens

Ebullient cornerback Richard Taylor was back at practice this morning, clearly glad to finally be in camp.

He's still rehabbing a partially torn ACL suffered in the spring, and he wound up back with the Terps since they did not replace linebacker Brian Dickerson when he quit the team last week. Teams can have 105 players in camp before classes begin.

He was running under the guidance of an athletic trainer, who will eventually give a go-ahead for Taylor to begin some basic drills. A doctor's OK is needed before he does anything too competitive.

"The doctors don't think he'll be cleared until Sept. 1," coach Ralph Friedgen said. "My agreement with Richard is he doesn't try to push it. I worry about that a little bit with him. I thought from a mental standpoint as far as preparing, it would expedite that. When he's physically ready, it would help him to be mentally ready, too."

- Patrick Stevens

Maryland's Ralph Friedgen said he would probably be fairly careful with Darrius Heyward-Bey's right foot injury. DHB was in a walking boot this morning and was expected to undergo an MRI exam later on in the day.

"I always hold my breath with those MRIs," Friedgen said. "I think [team physician] Dr. [Craig] Bennett might have stock in MRI. We MRI everybody. It's amazing. They're expensive. They probably give us a discount. Cheaper by the dozen."

On the bright side, Hey-Bey's injury opened up some reps for redshirt freshman Adrian Cannon and true freshman Quinton McCree today.

One other injury of note is Chase Bullock's ankle problem. Ralph didn't seem too certain about that, saying it could be a week or it could be 10 days.

Either way, it looks like Dave Philistin will start at middle linebacker in the opener against Villanova.

Overall, Friedgen seems to think the Terps have escaped any serious injuries beyond Alex Wucjiak's torn ACL last week.

"We're nicked up and have a lot of kids out right now," Friedgen said. "I don't anticipate anything serious. We just have to get everybody back. It's two-a-days. It's kind of the same old story every year."

- Patrick Stevens

OK, so the Orange Bowl isn't being torn down. But it is being vacated by Miami after this season. And after losing the Dolphins and then the Orange Bowl game itself, there won't be anything big in the sports world going on at the dilapidated stadium.

And that state of disrepair is the big reason Miami went searching for a better deal up the road at Dolphins Stadium. It's not as if the Hurricanes already play on campus, or that they come close to sellouts on a regular basis. I can still hear Doc Walker mumbling about pride and pageantry and great atmosphere while he called last year's North Carolina-Miami game. At the same time, an overhead shot of what turned out to be a crowd of 29,621.

That's one heck of an atmosphere.

It's funny, though, how grumbling about the place was relatively muted when the Hurricanes were winning national titles. But the past couple years, complaints about "facilities" -- a perennial marker of excellence in the college athletics arms race -- have led some to think it was a miracle The U ever contended for championships.

I'll take an educated guess and say the attractive weather in South Florida, the ridiculously fertile recruiting territory within a couple hours of Coral Gables and the perpetual winning had more to do with those titles than the stadium. All three are still in place, which is why when the 'Canes play host to Virginia on Nov. 10 in their home finale, I suspect they'll be ranked somewhere in the top 25 and be well on their way to a bounce-back season.

-- Patrick Stevens

Just got an e-mail from the folks at the Davey O'Brien Award, which is given to the top college QB. It's a watch list of 35 players, and yes, it's early. But it's worth taking a peek.

All the big names -- Southern Cal's John David Booty, Hawaii's Colt Brennan and West Virginia's Pat White -- are on there. There are three ACC QBs in the mix: Boston College's Matt Ryan, Wake Forest's Riley Skinner and Virginia's Jameel Sewell.

As for a sleeper QB that I'm looking forward to seeing on TV if the opportunity presents itself: Kentucky's Andre' Woodson, who tossed 31 touchdowns last year and would be talked up as a Heisman candidate if he played for a team likely to win more than seven games.

-- Patrick Stevens

Thought it would be fun to point out where Maryland stands in the Princeton Review rankings. Their meaning -- like other listings of their like -- are certainly subject to debate.

Students apparently "pack the stadiums" in droves -- moreso than any other school -- though that might be a kind way of saying "subjugate their self-worth in favor of taunting Duke repeatedly."

Other slots: No. 2 in "Their Students (Almost) Never Study" (behind West Virginia), No. 6 in "Best College Newspaper" (even though Diamondback reporters have not been seen or heard from at football practice the last two weeks), No. 14 in "Party Schools" and No. 16 in "Diverse Student Population."

-- Patrick Stevens

Quick practice report from an overcast day in College Park, as the opener against Villanova is a mere 11 days away.

Tailback Da'Rel Scott and linebackers Rick Costa and Chase Bullock -- all back at Maryland's practice, but limited nonetheless.

Wideout Darrius Heyward-Bey was still wearing a walking boot on his right foot. Coach Ralph Friedgen said the Terps would be careful with Heyward-Bey the rest of camp, and who can blame that line of thinking?

MIA today, at least from what reporters saw, was wideout Danny Oquendo. It'll be interesting to see what -- if any -- light Ralph opts to shed on his absence.

Turns out wideout Danny Oquendo's absence is likely a one-day affair. The junior had a wisdom tooth extracted this morning, though Maryland coach Ralph Friedgen insisted he probably could have prodded Oquendo into practicing if necessary.

Fortunately, it wasn't necessary, since that surgery isn't the most fun thing to undergo. And it was nice Ralph was willing to share the reason for Oquendo's absence. Of course, it goes without saying the big fella would rather not have any of his players (rather than just the guy coming off oral surgery) hit in the mouth.

Friedgen said Oquendo told him he'd be back tomorrow.

Meanwhile, Friedgen found an MRI exam performed on wideout Darrius Heyward-Bey's right foot to be "encouraging." There was nothing wrong with the bone -- certainly not a stress fracture -- and Ralph expects him back next week.

"For a guy who runs fast, he has poor feet," Friedgen said. "We're trying to work with him with orthotics."

One other injury of note: Reserve offensive lineman Paul Pinegar was carted out of practice after someone rolled into him. Pinegar is a walk-on, but he was a possibility to provide depth at guard if things worked out right.

"I'm hoping he's OK, but I don't know," Friedgen said. "That's an offensive lineman. We can't afford to lose many of them."

Ralph also said defensive back Taji Thornton is ineligible and won't be back, while tailback Pha'Terrell Washington's status will probably be determined no earlier than Friday.

Oh, and all's quiet on the quarterback front. Ralph jokingly (I think) said all three QBs were even. I just think he likes playing mind games, and there's something to be said for that. Fortunately, this round of the QB circus will have to come to an end by the end of the month. T-minus 10 days and counting.

-- Patrick Stevens

It's getting a bit closer to school starting. There are signs freshmen will starting moving into the high rises in College Park soon, and (as if someone was reading my mind) Diamondback beat guy Andrew Zuckerman is around. The replacement for esteemed 2006-07 beat writer Stephen Whyno had a good reason not to be in town; he was finishing an internship with Comcast SportsNet in Philadelphia.

Anyway, something has caught my eye as I've parked inside Byrd Stadium each day for the last couple weeks — banners detailing why it's great to be a Terps fan (and, in turn, a donor to the Terrapin Club). There's supposed to be 101 reasons, but here are the five I saw:

* "Because I've got Fridge Fever."

Gosh, that slogan is sooooo 2001.

* "Because fans looks best in red and black."

Well, it does beat azure and mauve.

* "Because Testudo's the best mascot ever."

I'd say this guy has all mascots everywhere beat; as for in college, my vote goes to this guy, also seen here in a classic photo.

* "Because I'm proud of our tradition."

That sure beats shying away from it.

* "Because the alma mater still makes me cry."

I'll admit, I'm a Maryland alum. But I couldn't for the life of me tell you the words to the alma mater. I'd bet good money the words "alma mater" are in there somewhere. (And this is not an invitation for someone to send me a link to the lyrics; I'm sure I could find the words quickly if I so chose).

(Editor's note: I'll save you all the trouble)

The thing I remember most about the alma mater was Gary Williams defiantly staring at the court when it was played after the Terps lost to Florida State in 2001 (otherwise known as the time Delvon Arrington hopped on the scorer's table after the final buzzer to celebrate).

-- Patrick Stevens

Today marks the final two-a-day practice over at Maryland for this year's camp. Which means we won't get to hear Ralph Friedgen talk about how it's one of the last bastions of toughness left in our society, at least for a little while anyway.

I saw tailback Lance Ball as I walking into the practice field today and mentioned the importance of the day. He didn't even try to hide his joy.

"Finally," Ball said. "It's a milestone."

When you're in school for four or five years, finally being done with two practices in a day is worth celebrating.

One guy who was very pleased with this development was defensive tackle Dre Moore. I didn't even need to mention to him last night how much time was left until the season opener against Villanova (10 more days at this point) or the meaning of today. He offered it up on his own.

"One more two-a-day. It's my last one ever," Moore said with his typical dry wit. "I might cry."

-- Patrick Stevens

The last week of camp at Maryland means more than being closer to the season opener. For a handful of players, it provides an opportunity to get on scholarship.

Last year, coach Ralph Friedgen awarded scholarships to walk-ons Dan Ennis, Rick Costa, Moise Fokou and Greg Powell (and still had two left over). It looked like it would be tighter this year, but Taji Thornton's confirmed eligibility puts Maryland at 84 scholarships by my near-official count.

So could someone earn a nice surprise later this week?

"It's a possibility," Friedgen said. "Yeah, once I know what's available."

That's a euphemistic way of saying "Once I know everyone will be eligible." One guy who is on the bubble is redshirt freshman Pha'Terrell Washington, whose summer session classes finish up this week.

This isn't a definitive list by any means, but the walk-ons who could possibly pick up scholarships are long snapper Brendan McDermond, holder Matt Goldberg and special teams contributor Colin Nelson. All three have been in the program for a few years (Nelson transferred from Division III McDaniel before the 2005 season, Goldberg is a fourth-year junior and McDermond is a fifth-year senior). Friedgen usually tries to reward guys who have been around the team for a while, and all three fit that description. I don't know precisely what Ralph is thinking on this topic, but that's as educated a guess as I can provide.

-- Patrick Stevens

The lingering injury question for Maryland today was the status of reserve offensive lineman Paul Pinegar, who was carted out of practice yesterday. Here's Ralph Friedgen's take on the situation.

"The doctor will see him this afternoon," Friedgen said. "Hopefully we'll know something. He had an MRI this morning. I'm hoping for the best there. From what [athletic trainer] Wes [Robinson] tells me, he's got more of a lateral thing. The one knee is not equal to what the other knee is."

Meanwhile, both linebacker Alex Wujciak (ACL) and walk-on defensive back Jared Baum (hand) will undergo surgery on Friday. Friedgen still believes wideout Darrius Heyward-Bey will be back from his foot injury next week. And Danny Oquendo didn't practice this morning, but I can't say I blame him if he had a wisdom tooth (or teeth) pulled less than 24 hours earlier.

As for position battles, things seem to be looking good for Dave Philistin at middle linebacker. Of course, he'd like to be making a contribution at tailback as well (more on that later in the week, but let's just say no one does more unabashed lobbying for a random carry or two than Philistin), but it looks like his athleticism and Chase Bullock's ankle injury will leave him as the likely starter at MIKE for the Sept. 1 opener.

-- Patrick Stevens

A little good news, a little bad news on some of Maryland's new wide receivers.

Quinton McCree has caught the eye of coach Ralph Friedgen, and he even moved ahead of redshirt freshman Adrian Cannon in some drills this morning. It sounds more and more like McCree (who is getting plenty of looks at X with Darrius Heyward-Bey stuck in a walking boot) could have some kind of role for the Terps this season. It might not be a big one, but after bluffing the way through last season with three legitimate receivers, any depth that can make it onto the field is good depth.

As for Tony Logan, a hyped recruit out of New Jersey, it's probably best for Ralph to explain what his status is.

"[This camp is] a big wash," Friedgen said. "He pulled his hamstring when he came to summer workouts. He hasn't done anything. I couldn't tell you. I don't know enough about him. He hasn't practiced much. I guess he has a deep hamstring pull that's been there forever. We'll probably see him in the spring. If he doesn't start practicing, I'll break his plate."

Suffice it to say, nothing screams "redshirt year" like "we'll probably see him in the spring."

-- Patrick Stevens

The Maryland women's basketball schedule is out, and while a good chunk of it had trickled out in advance, it's still crammed with interesting nonconference games (the kind that were lacking last year coming off a national title).

There's a neutral court game against Oklahoma on Nov. 11 at North Carolina, a trip to UCLA on Nov. 25 and a visit from Ohio State on Nov. 30. That’s a pretty sweet first month, and doesn’t even include the Preseason NIT.

Toss in trips to Rutgers (that program was in the news in April) and James Madison (aka Kristi Toliver Homecoming Game) and it makes for a pretty slick schedule.

One other notable date: Duke visits Comcast Center on Jan. 14. It's a Monday during semester break, so maybe that just means fewer student crazies and more of the targeted "dads-and-daughters" crowd. Of course, a Monday night game probably isn't as easy a sell for that demographic as a weekend game -- which Maryland has been fortunate enough to land quite often in recent years.

-- Patrick Stevens

If colleges had students write "What I Did During My Summer Vacation" nonsense, I'd bet Greivis Vasquez would have most of his classmates topped.

The Maryland guard found himself playing against the likes of Kobe Bryant, Jason Kidd and LeBron James last night in the opener of the FIBA Americas tournament in Las Vegas.

OK, so General Greivis and the Venezuelans got rolled 112-69. But Vasquez had a team-high 12 points in his first game in the Olympic qualifying tournament.

Speaking of college basketball, with the women's ACC schedule out yesterday the men's slate shouldn't be too far behind -- they usually are released on consecutive days.

-- Patrick Stevens

That is the question. At least for Ralph Friedgen today.

The posse of players in medical jerseys yesterday was strong. Maybe too strong. There were three wide receivers on the sideline, and that didn't include the absent Danny Oquendo (pulled wisdom tooth).

That wouldn't be a problem over at Navy, where wide receiver is a just a friendly term for "decoy" or "he's here for his blocking ability." But it would affect the chances of Maryland opening up its playbook -- maybe to anywhere past page 15. That's a stretch, but the array of minor injuries is nevertheless a factor.

"I'd like to scrimmage, but I don't know if we're capable right now," Friedgen said.

So there will be an entirely closed practice this afternoon for whatever frivolity the Fridge opts to engage in. Maybe afterward, he'll name a quarterback. Or maybe he won't. I thought for sure it would happen a week ago, but Ralph had other plans. As such, I can't make any of my own (besides at 10:45 p.m. fantasy football draft) for tonight.

-- Patrick Stevens

Maryland coach Ralph Friedgen has alternated between coy, amused, weary, bemused and snippy when asked about his quarterback situation, which features Jordan Steffy, Josh Portis and Chris Turner. I'll consult my Magic 8 Ball for how Ralph will be today.

It says, "Reply hazy, try again." That figures.

To pass the time between now and this evening, I thought I'd drop in a bunch of Friedgen quotes on the quarterbacks from throughout camp. They're in chronological order -- including his media comment about wanting to make a decision reasonably quickly -- so you can see how his public pronouncements have progressed.

Aug. 6

"It'll be at least a week, maybe a little bit more, but we have to start focusing in on who is the No. 1 guy. ... It's hard enough to get one guy ready as opposed to three. You have to get three, but the guy who has to take the majority of the snaps has to take the majority of the [practice] reps."

Aug. 7

"I really feel good about the quarterback situation once it all works its way it out. I think we have some kids there that are pretty good and are going to be pretty good. We just have to go out and do it. Until that happens, no one's gonna believe me."

Aug. 11

"What disappointed me a little bit about Josh is we're running the option better, but Jordan is running it better than he is. That should be his forte. It's little things, it's footwork and it's reads. I told him most of the people are going to make you hand the ball off, but he wants to run it so bad he pulls it anyway and then we have a dead play. It'll come eventually."

Aug. 14

"Yeah, I am [nearing a decision]. I just want to wait a little bit yet."

"Steffy still has that lead. ... Other guys are having trouble with the speed of the game, getting the play run in time, getting the right call."

Aug. 18

"No, [I'm] not really [irritated by a lack of decision]. I know you guys probably are. Maybe that's why I do it."

Aug. 20

"I haven't finally pulled the trigger on that yet. I'm close, but I'm not there yet. I may go to Thursday. I may go to tomorrow. When I feel it's the right time I'll make the decision."

Aug. 21

"They're all even, how's that?"

"When I feel like it, how's that? Maybe the night before the game."

Aug. 22

"No."

And there you have it.

Just got this in my e-mail. More on it later. ...

N11 vs. TBA ESPNU 8:00

CBE Classic, College Park, Md.

N12 vs. TBA ESPNU 9:00

CBE Classic, College Park, Md.

N15 Northeastern CSN 8:00

N19 vs. TBA ESPN2/ESPNU TBA

CBE Classic, Sprint Center, Kansas City, Mo.

N20 vs. TBA ESPN2/ESPNU TBA

CBE Classic, Sprint Center, Kansas City, Mo.

N23 Lehigh 8:00

N28 Illinois ESPN2 7:30

Big Ten/ACC Challenge

D2 Maryland vs. Virginia Commonwealth tba

BB&T Classic, Washington, D.C.

D6 Morgan State CSN 8:00

D9 Boston College FSN 7:30

D12 Ohio CSN 8:00

D22 American CSN 4:00

D28 Delaware CSN 8:00

J2 Savannah State 8:00

J5 vs. UNC Charlotte ESPNU 12:00

Charlotte Bobcats Arena

J8 Holy Cross 8:00

J12 at Virginia Tech RLF split 2:00

J15 Wake Forest RLF 9:00

J19 at North Carolina ABC 3:30

J27 Duke FSN 6:30

J30 Virginia ESPN or ESPN2 7:00

F2 at Georgia Tech ESPN2 12:00

F6 at Boston College ESPNU 7:00

F9 NC State RLF 8:00

F13 at Duke ESPN 7:00

F16 Florida State RLF split 3:00

F20 Virginia Tech RLF split 9:00

F23 at Miami RLF split 2:00

F28 at Wake Forest RLF 8:00

M2 Clemson FSN 7:30

M9 at Virginia FSN 7:30

OK, so North Carolina isn't going to visit Comcast Center this season. You should have known that already (the ACC established its current schedule rotation a few years back), but there are some insights to be gleaned from a quick glance and a trip to collegerpi.com.

* The Terps play six of their last 10 on the road. That includes a pair of stretches with three of four away from Comcast.

* There's a lot of Saturday games. Maryland will play seven out of eight Saturdays at the start of the new year.

* There aren't a lot of absurd late-night games. In ACC play, the Terps have only two 9 p.m. tips, and both are at home.

* The Terps' byes are well-placed. One comes before a visit from Duke. The other is just before the season finale at Virginia.

* If you want a possible storyline for several months in the future, try this one. If Maryland loses its ACC tournament opener but still reached the NCAA tournament, the Terps will have played twice in the 18 or 19 days before their NCAA first round game.

* Four of the worst 50 teams from last year's RPI (Savannah State-289, Morgan State-303, Delaware-306, North Florida-333) will visit Comcast Center.

-- Patrick Stevens

Gary Williams and Jim Boeheim are good friends. And if there's anything Gary should have learned from his pal's plight in mid-March last year, it's that you have to at least try to play an imposing nonconference schedule.

Williams has sort of done that with the schedule released today, with POSSIBLE games against Michigan State and UCLA tossed in with games against Illinois, Virginia Commonwealth, Holy Cross and Ohio. Next up: Tulsa (another possible opponent) and Charlotte.

A listing of how the top six nonconference opponents from last year is as follows: Illinois, Michigan State, Winthrop, Notre Dame, Vermont and Fordham.

Last year's list was better. Much better. But there is a tightrope act for Williams to walk, given the influx of freshmen and departure of three starters. There is no reason to construct a John Chaney-style schedule.

Something that has to be a concern is whether some of this year's marquee opponents — Illinois and Virginia Commonwealth, in particular — turn out to be as good as they were last year. I'd bet against both, though it would be a surprise if either team failed to contend for NCAA berths.

What is unsettling about the schedule is the four teams that finished last year in the bottom 50 of the RPI. That's the plankton of Division I, and gorging yourself on Savannah State, Morgan State, Delaware and North Florida will not fill you up in the eyes of the NCAA selection committee.

Granted, there have to be some easy wins in there someplace. And you get a pass for an in-state school (like Morgan State, which should be better this year) paying a visit.

But the way to win the RPI game is to schedule teams you figure will finish between 50 and 150. Really, to avoid a scare, narrowing that continuum to 70 to 150 works fine.

Teams that finish in that range are usually either good small conference teams that roll up 20+ wins, capable mid-majors who hit the 17-win plateau or power conference teams on the outside of NCAA tournament contention.

Maryland scheduled two teams for the upcoming season that finished between 70 and 150 last year (Ohio and Charlotte). Tulsa will probably make it three. The trouble is, there might not be enough of those games this year to make the nonconference strength of schedule.

Williams insists the most important factor to the NCAA selection committee is wins. He's wrong, and he can ask his buddy in upstate New York just how much good 22 victories did Syracuse last year. At least Maryland actually leaves the state to play a few games every year, so the comparison isn't completely equitable, but Syracuse was made an example of last March and major-conference schools would be wise to heed that warning.

I won't say 21 or 22 victories won't be enough for this year's Terps; such proclamations are silly to make when there's six weeks left in the season and downright stupid more than six weeks before practice begins. But it's quite conceivable Maryland will rue its nonconference scheduling come Selection Sunday.

-- Patrick Stevens

The definition of insanity is said to be performing the same task over and over and expecting different results.

So I guess reporters (myself included) who cover Maryland football are teetering on madness with these questions about the Terrapins' quarterback situation.

"Not tonight," coach Ralph Friedgen clucked when the Daily Quarterback Question was broached last night.

In case anyone's interested, Jordan Steffy was 19-for-26 for 165 yards and an interception in the scrimmage. Josh Portis was 7-for-10 for 133 yards, while Chris Turner was 5-for-7 for 63 yards.

Friedgen was asked if there was an actual timetable for the decision.

"I don't know," Friedgen said. "That's a big one, isn't it? I just love tantalizing you people."

And I just love sitting in the student union as 9 p.m. approaches rapping out wry comments.

As for injuries, 20 guys sat out the scrimmage. That's almost enough to fill out a bingo card. And you can add Red 34 to the list of walking wounded; middle linebacker Dave Philistin might have pulled a hamstring.

In brighter news, offensive lineman Paul Pinegar and linebacker Ben Pooler, who both have knee injuries, are unlikely to require surgery. Both will be out for three weeks.

-- Patrick Stevens

For a coach who had 20 guys sit out a scrimmage and had just watched his team commit more than a dozen penalties and five turnovers, Ralph Friedgen was in an unusually good mood last night.

Well, maybe that isn't quite right. But he certainly was ripping off one-liners like at no other point in camp.

Early on, Ralph mentioned walk-on Rashad Henry fumbled a pair of kickoffs. It shows both the proliferation of the minor injuries and the uncertainty on kickoff returns that a walk-on is still getting a look this deep in camp.

But not any longer.

"You will not see Henry on the kickoffs," Friedgen said. "He sealed the deal on that tonight. If you do, call [Tim] Donaghy."

Later, he wondered why wide receiver Danny Oquendo wasn't allowed to participate in the scrimmage.

"I don't know why they're holding him," Friedgen said. "Because he had a tooth pulled? [Heck], it ain't there anymore."

The topic of awarding scholarships to walk-ons was broached, and the big question remains connected with tailback Pha'Terrell Washington's eligibility. But Friedgen apparently gets badgered whenever he talks about a specific student's academic ineligibility issues and said "I'm not even supposed to say the kid's name."

"I'm always breaking some rule around this place," Friedgen said. "Can't be honest anymore. You have to worry about all these darn rules."

And if it weren't for all those pesky "laws," I would never have to pay for anything again. So much for a perfect world.

-- Patrick Stevens

Here's a rundown of some of the whopping 20 guys who missed last night's scrimmage at Maryland.

Ralph mentioned a few guys, the box score reveals a few, and seeing the posse in red medical jerseys at practice the last few days hints at some more.

* Wide receivers Darrius Heyward-Bey (right foot) and Danny Oquendo (wisdom tooth). Friedgen said Hey-Bey should be back on Monday. Emani Lee-Odai, one of the Redcoats in recent days, didn't have any statistics in the scrimmage.

* Linebackers Erin Henderson (stinger), Chase Bullock (ankle), Rick Costa (concussion), Ben Pooler (knee) and Alex Wujciak (ACL tear). Henderson was held out as a precautionary measure. Friedgen said Bullock and Costa are getting close to returning. Pooler's out three weeks, and Wujciak is done for the season. And this group doesn’t even include Dave Philistin, who hurt a hamstring last night.

* Offensive lineman Paul Pinegar (knee); he's out for three weeks.

* Tailback Da'Rel Scott did not scrimmage (meanwhile, Morgan Green DID play and had 48 yards on 12 carries).

* Richard Taylor is still recovering from an April knee injury and won't play in the opener.

* Lansford Watson is out after his surgery to repair his meniscus earlier this month.

* Since walk-on Jared Baum is supposed to undergo surgery to put a pin in his thumb today, he probably didn't play yesterday. Friedgen said Baum could be back in time for the Sept. 1 opener.

Well, that's 13, and I don't doubt there are lingering camp ailments for which a scrimmage would not be a recommended treatment. Still, the only camp injury with a long-term impact on the season appears to be Wujciak's, so things probably look far worse than they really are.

-- Patrick Stevens

Just got done talking with Jason Yaman, Maryland's superb men's basketball SID, who confirmed one of the rollover years in coach Gary Williams' contract has kicked in. He's now locked up through 2011-12, and he can add two more seasons through rollovers in future years.

(Or he can just redo his contract for the ninth time since he took the job in 1989.)

Here's how the option/rollover year gets triggered. Williams' contract -- redone in December 2005 and again last November to guarantee him through 2011 -- has both an academic and a performance clause. If he meets both, he gets an extra season.

The performance aspect is pretty easy to understand; make the NCAA tournament and it is satisfied. The Terps reached the second round last year with their 25-9 season. There are other performance clauses, but an NCAA berth is the best way to get it done.

There are two primary ways to fulfill the academic portion. One is to meet the NCAA's Academic Progress Rate (APR) cut score, which the Terps didn't do when that data was released in May.

The other one is for the players on scholarship to earn an average of 27 "degree-applicable credits" in an academic year. The Terps met that criteria from the fall of 2006 to the first summer session of 2007. Players typically take a class or two in the first session and then leave campus for the final six weeks of summer break.

What's interesting about that is the fact both Mike Jones and D.J. Strawberry withdrew from classes in the middle of the spring semester. It means the other 10 guys on scholarship were probably averaging 30 credits (and perhaps more) to make up for the absence of the two seniors who were busy chasing their pro hoop dreams after the season ended.

-- Patrick Stevens

Jordan Steffy. We just got the call from Patrick in College Park. More to come. ...

The worst-kept secret in College Park -- and maybe all of college football -- is out of the bag at last.

Jordan Steffy will be Maryland's starting quarterback when the Terrapins meet Villanova on Sept. 1.

Coach Ralph Friedgen made the call this evening, putting an end to a "competition" that didn't seem all that relevant. It hung over camp, in part because this is a team much like last year's Terps; it's best storylines will be developed during the season rather than before it.

Steffy could well be the best preseason and in-season story the Terps produce this year. He was consistent throughout camp, fending off Josh Portis and Chris Turner rather easily.

"I think Jordan's ahead," said Friedgen, who met with Steffy for about 20 minutes before practice to inform him of his decision. "I think he's been ahead since the spring, and if anything he's widened the gap. He's just comfortable with what we've done because he's done it longer."

Why did Ralph take so long? There's probably some merit in his response today to that question: "I just like irritating you people." Well, mission accomplished, big guy. Just don't stand on the deck of an aircraft carrier in full fighter pilot gear with a big honking banner behind you until you win six or seven games this year. If ever.

But aside from psyching out a bunch of reporters, which I don't doubt is merry sport, he probably wanted to be sure of two things. One, that he gave everyone else -- notably the uber-athletic Portis -- a chance to win the job. Two, that he got the chance to see how Steffy would react to his hemming and hawing.

Steffy, to his credit, never blinked and just rolled up one solid day after another to win the job.

"I just tried to be consistent and play within the system, just go through my reads and things like that," Steffy said. "Like I said before, there's no substitute for time and now it's my time and I'm ready for it."

We'll undoubtedly see Portis at some point, and maybe even Turner, too. But how much and how soon is almost entirely in Steffy's hands.

-- Patrick Stevens

Quick hits on the offensive line for Maryland: Jack Griffin edged Dane Randolph for the right tackle job, though both will play. Sophomore Phil Costa will back up both guard positions and center. True freshman Bruce Campbell is the No. 2 left tackle, though coach Ralph Friedgen is still contemplating swinging Randolph over if left tackle Scott Burley gets hurt.

Kicker Obi Egekeze won the PAT and field goal duties going away. Egekeze made two 40-plus-yard field goals on Thursday and nearly made a 52-yard attempt. Coming up short on those is forgivable. If he can translate that into quality game performances, it will save Friedgen and affable special teams coordinator Ray Rychleski many sleepless nights.

As for true freshmen besides Campbell and punter Travis Baltz (who won that job), the three closest to the field are wideout Quinton McCree, fullback Haroon Brown and safety Dominique Herald. McCree is battling Adrian Cannon for the top backup spot at X, Darrius Heyward-Bey's split end position. Brown has shown flashes and could end up Cory Jackson's top backup at fullback.

Herald's name might have popped up for the first time all month today, but Friedgen gushed about him endlessly. He's 5-foot-11, 185 pounds and a wicked hitter (think a younger Christian Varner type), and he's been worked into two special teams units with a third one possible. He could wind up playing more than just about everyone in his class, though Friedgen was concerned Herald would ask to redshirt rather than appear only on special teams.

-- Patrick Stevens

Maryland has posted its end-of-camp depth chart, and there are some subtle (but still interesting) changes to it.

* Keon Lattimore is listed as the starting tailback, ahead of Lance Ball. Coach Ralph Friedgen raved about Lattimore throughout camp, so this isn't much of a surprise. Both guys are likely to get their share of the carries; Ralph's primarily operated a committee system the last two years, and I'll believe a change in that approach when I see it.

* As Ralph said the other day, the Williamses (Isaiah and LaQuan) are even at Z receiver.

* Adrian Moten impressed Ralph in Thursday's scrimmage at middle linebacker, prompting the big fella to say the redshirt freshman might be a natural for the position. Moten - who I remember from last year as one of the first players to reach the student section in the pregame sprint from the locker room each game - is listed as the co-starter with Dave Philistin.

* Terrell Skinner is the top kickoff returner, followed by Lattimore. A healthy Da'Rel Scott would give the Terps more options on returns.

* A full accounting of true freshmen: Quinton McCree (No. 3 X receiver); Bruce Campbell (No. 2 left tackle); Jamarr Robinson (No. 4 quarterback); Haroon Brown (No. 3 fullback); Dominique Herald (No. 4 strong safety); Trenton Hughes (No. 4 cornerback); Travis Baltz (No. 1 punter).

— Patrick Stevens

Quick update from College Park, where athletic director Debbie Yow said 18 of the 64 suites for Byrd Stadium have been sold. The suites are part of a renovation that is expected to be done in time for the 2009 season.

Yow said in April it will be necessary to sell at least 50 suites to meet the athletic department's financial commitments

"The general wisdom is that 80 percent of the suite sales occur in the year preceding the opening of the project," Yow said. "For us to have sold 36 percent of those two years ahead of when the project will be open I think is impressive."

Sorry, no football news here.

Just got word the Nov. 23 basketball game (the day after Thanksgiving) against Lehigh has been switched from 8 p.m. to 4 p.m. It won’t get a desperate beat writer down to Raleigh for a football game the next day against N.C. State any earlier, but it does afford a little extra sleep (and the chance for fans to avoid a late night at Comcast Center on Black Friday).

-- Patrick Stevens

This time last year, Maryland coach Ralph Friedgen said he would try to find opportunities to get Jordan Steffy some time at quarterback in games in place of Sam Hollenbach. He added some sort of caveat and, without looking it up, it was along the lines of "if the situation allows it."

The situation allowed it once -- in the opener against William & Mary -- and Steffy went 0-for-5 and wasn't seen again without a headset or clipboard the rest of the season.

So here we are a year later, and Steffy is the starter and Josh Portis is the backup who could be tossed into the fray. And Friedgen is saying the same things.

He pointed out yesterday he had assured Steffy he shouldn't feel threatened, but also recounted a story concering Portis' progress.

"There was a call he missed in the scrimmage the other day and I sent it in purposely for him again," Friedgen said. "I said 'Bet you an ice cream tonight at dinner you don't get it right.' He turned me and said 'I'm gonna get them all right.' That's the first sign, when they can talk back to you. And he got it right. Obviously, he's putting in some extra time to get better."

And, obviously, Ralph won't be wagering food again any time soon.

As for Steffy, he didn't seem bothered by Portis' presence as he heads into his first career start on Saturday against Villanova.

"Two, three years ago I bought into this whole team concept," Steffy said. "If coach Friedgen thinks that's necessary and that's going to better this team, I have no complaints about it."

-- Patrick Stevens

Football's annual Era of Good Feelings -- the four weeks leading into every team's season opener -- is about to end. In this case, Andrew Jackson is not culpable for the demise.

This is the zenith of overbearing optimism, when every team can win a national title and legitimate concerns just get brushed under the rug.

So during Maryland coach Ralph Friedgen's presser yesterday, it was interesting to hear how he framed the Terrapins' punting situation. True freshman Travis Baltz will get the call on Saturday against Villanova.

"I don't think you're gonna see Adam Podlesh there with Travis," Friedgen said. "We're not gonna be as good there as we've been. If we can kick the ball and it gets some height and we cover it and kick it 37, 38 yards, I'll feel great."

Ralph didn't say anything that wasn't already obvious, and it isn't like Baltz is expected to struggle. But fans who grew accustomed to booming punts from Brooks Barnard and Podlesh the last eight years will have to adapt to a different kind of punting game this season.

-- Patrick Stevens

With tailback Pha'Terrell Washington academically eligible and out getting some exercise with the rest of his teammates today, it seemed like a fair time to ask coach Ralph Friedgen about handing out a scholarship to a walk-on.

"I don't have many to give so I've had a long line outside my door asking for scholarships," Friedgen said. "I have to look to see who's spent the most time in the program and who's made the most contributions. Where I can award one, I will."

Friedgen declined to say how many he had at his disposal, but by my count he has one extra scholarship remaining. That's a subplot that should shake out soon enough.

Speaking of walk-ons, another 15 or 16 came out as classes began (along with Southern Cal transfer Antwine Perez). There was an extra dude running around with what I call an Elliot Ness jersey (since guys wearing them are supposed to be untouchable) and I asked Ralph about that.

"One of them was a quarterback," Friedgen said. "'Bout as tall as you."

According to my driver's license, I'm 5-foot-8, and we all know what that means. Of course, there might be some legitimacy to it; my ID doesn't say my name is McLovin.
— Patrick Stevens

Who knows if this idea will ever come to fruition, but it certainly is fascinating: Josh Portis, Kick Returner.

Apparently, Portis is starting to work with Maryland's kickoff return team. Right now he's behind Terrell Skinner and Keon Lattimore, but it would be an interesting way to make the most of his talents.

"Ray [Rychleski] went to him and asked him if he was interested in doing it," Friedgen said. "I guess he said yes. I don't have a problem with it. I think he has some skills there. If he didn't want to do it we wouldn't have done it with him."

And as for an immediate payoff? Friedgen answered that question in almost the exact same way he answered the "will Portis play quarterback this week?" question.

"It just depends on how the game goes and depends on how he practices in how we use him and what we do," Friedgen said. "The worst thing we can do is to have him go in there and not have him play well. That would hurt his confidence more than help it."
— Patrick Stevens

Maryland coach Ralph Friedgen gave his golf cart a good workout today, completing a perimeter sweep of the practice facility before riding over toward reporters.

"Is everybody here today?" Ralph asked, referring to the habit of reporters to take attendance.

As a matter of fact, pretty much everyone was. And hey, Lansford Watson made an appearance in a medical jersey as he comes off knee surgery.

Otherwise, it was a highlight of a fairly short practice session (which should be wrapping up soon). OK, Darrius Heyward-Bey being thrown two passes at one time was kind of funny, and so were the rhythmic stylings of cornerback Isaiah Gardner and others during stretching drills.

All of this, of course, means a game can't come soon enough. Thankfully, it's just a shade over 48 hours until this season finally starts.

More to come later after talking to Ralph.

- Patrick Stevens

It wasn't enough for Ralph Friedgen to make mention of attendance-taking once today. He did it again as reporters filed into his office for a post-practice interview.

"You guys are like third grade teachers," Friedgen said. "I'm surprised you don't have a seating chart."

Don't worry, I'm working on it. Anything to make sure all the boys are getting their exercise.

There were a few quick hits today from practice, more than for a typical Thursday. To wit:

* Obi Egekeze drilled a 51-yard field goal during the two-minute drill today. "I didn't think he could kick it that far but he did," Friedgen said.

* Isaiah Williams has moved ahead of LaQuan Williams at Z receiver, with Friedgen pointing out LaQuan has struggled to catch balls and is probably a bit jittery as his first game approaches Saturday against Villanova. Both should play against the Wildcats.

* Jack Griffin will probably start over Dane Randolph at right tackle, though Randolph should play a fair amount. Ralph also said Phil Costa should play plenty, and my guess is that would be a left guard (where Costa was pushing Jaimie Thomas during camp).

* Friedgen said redshirt freshman Adrian Moten would likely start at middle linebacker after moving over there as a stopgap last week. Looks like Dave Philistin (hamstring) and Chase Bullock (ankle) might have been Wally Pipped. Philistin is back, but Friedgen said Bullock might not play since he is about 85 percent.

-- Patrick Stevens

Just a friendly reminder that Maryland's first two games will be televised by ESPN 360, the cable network's broadband service. As if you don't already pay enough money to cable entities. At least in the case of these games, no one else would have picked them up anyway.

An alternate way to catch both games is the campus radio station, WMUC. It has two sites: Sports and overall.

-- Patrick Stevens

Two people who probably won't be talking baseball tonight: Maryland special teams coordinator Ray Rychleski and affable team manager John Bonacci.

Bonacci was scampering around during the team's stretching drills today, which prompted Official Beat Diva Heather Dinich to speculate it was related to fantasy football. Instead, Bonacci was gleeful over the New York Mets' rally in Philadelphia to erase an 8-5 deficit.

This wasn't fun for me as a Veterans Stadium, well, veteran who spent enough time sneaking from the 700 level to well into the lower deck earlier this decade.

(College Park, never the greatest college town, had nothing on slipping up to Philly for Friday night or pre-finals game, like this one featuring the immortal Allen Levrault and the legendary Devon White and a lot of fantasy baseball trash talk between myself and now-Washington Times design maestro Harrison Goodman).

"I just want a win," said Bonacci, fretful the Mets' seven-game lead at the start of the week was already down to three.

I felt differently. Later, I found out the Phillies managed to score twice in the ninth off closer Billy Wagner to complete the four-game sweep. And if I hadn't, Rychleski made sure I didn't miss it.

"I know you folks don't all get to read the paper, but I thought you should know the Phillies completed the sweep today," Rychleski beamed as we waited for Ralph Friedgen to let us scurry into his office.

And I thought you all should know as well. Especially John Bonacci.

-- Patrick Stevens

Well, the college football season sure is off to a rousing start.

The four games featuring top 25 teams last night delivered these scores: 38-3, 73-10, 45-0, 56-7.

As colleague Corey Masisak said, the Big East-Ohio Valley Challenge went as expected: Louisville crushing Murray State and Cincinnati drilling Southeast Missouri State. D1scourse favorite Oregon State is also off to a fine start after fending off Utah 24-7 in Corvallis.

However, it wasn't all smiles across the major-college landscape. After all, Iowa State coach Gene Chizik probably wishes he was back at Texas rather than nursing the wounds from a 23-14 loss to solid-though-not-spectacular Kent State.

As a side note to that game from the Des Moines Register, petty cable disputes seem to be the rage these days. This time, one cable company claimed the politics behind the newly launched Big Ten Network prevented it from televising Iowa State's opener.

-- Patrick Stevens

Nothing says college football like seeing a pair of Big Five teams on the opening weekend.

Due to another case of shortstaffitis, I'll be making the trip up to Philadelphia later today for Navy-Temple before covering Maryland-Villanova tomorrow night at Byrd Stadium. Bonus side trip: Pat's King of Steaks, an artery-clogging visit that will probably take a couple weeks off my life but is awful hard to pass up any time I'm in town.

The jaunt up I-95 also means plenty of holiday traffic, some witticisms from Navy coach Paul Johnson and an early look at the Mids' defense. All will be covered over the next couple days, as will the fallout from Maryland-Villanova.

-- Patrick Stevens

A little more than 24 hours from Maryland's season opener, and the question still on everyone's mind is this: Just how good will Jordan Steffy be at quarterback?

It is the easy thing to point to when assessing the Terps' chances this season, and it's certainly been scrutinized as much as anything about this team. One of the message boards for Maryland fans already has a Josh Portis Mafia, ready to squeal at the very sight of the athletic Florida transfer.

(For the record, the real keys to the season are probably both of the lines. Maryland's offensive line can ill afford to incur a rash of injuries, and neither Steffy nor Portis will likely thrive under constant pressure. The defensive line -- which generated only 20 sacks last year and was a non-factor in several games -- must be better to take pressure off the secondary.)

Back to Steffy. He isn't going to win the Heisman. He isn't going to throw for 3,500 yards. He isn't going to re-invent the wheel. But no one should expect him to do those things, either.

It would be stunning, though, if he was an abject failure. He understands and accepts that his job is to be a game manager. He understands he can do more by not making a bad decision than by trying to create something that isn't there. He understands the offense and his role in it.

If that doesn't seem exciting to fans, too bad. And don't expect much excitement this week, either; Ralph Friedgen ran a painfully vanilla offense early on last year, and there shouldn't be any reason to open things up against Villanova (no matter how "tough" the Wildcats purportedly are).

Steffy's earned his chance at long last, and the bet here is he turns out to be solid even if he won't be a fixture on highlights shows. That's OK. Maryland had a quarterback like that last year and he certainly had a little something to do with that 9-4 record.

Of course, Steffy (like the rest of the team) will remain a relative unknown for the next two weeks barring an utter disaster. Tomorrow is an early test, but not one worth reading much into. The real evaluation should begin Sept. 13.

- Patrick Stevens