Maryland just issued a release saying quarterback Josh Portis would not play this season for an academic issue that Portis said in a statement "involv[ed] the University Academic Code of Conduct."
So he's done for the year, and Chris Turner becomes Jordan Steffy's immediate backup. Jamarr Robinson is the only other scholarship quarterback left on the roster.
More in a bit, but obviously this shakes things up for the Terps in terms of quarterback depth.
It's tough to quibble with Jordan Steffy's first start at Maryland.
He was efficient, going 19-for-24 for 174 yards in last night's 31-14 victory. He ran for 47 yards, including some fairly nifty carries and a 10-yard touchdown scramble.
Granted, his leg cramp was a temporarily fretful situation. With Steffy in the locker room and Josh Portis ineligible for the season, it was almost getting to the point where finding a quarterback was a little bit like playing "Where's Waldo."
Fortunately, it was Steffy who jogged back from the team house and not some dude with glasses and a walking stick.
The only questionable thing Steffy did was chuck an interception late in the first half.
"He treated it like it was single coverage and it was double coverage," coach Ralph Friedgen said. "He came out and I said 'You have to throw that thing.' He said 'I know.' Then in the fourth quarter, he said 'I'm really sorry I threw that.' I said 'Forget it, it's over, move on.'"
A game into the season, Maryland has already tripled the number of true freshmen it used last year.
Punter Travis Baltz was a given, and he delivered a pair of 40-yard-plus punts in the 31-14 defeat of Villanova. Dominique Herald also got in on special teams as anticipated.
So too did left tackle Bruce Campbell, who played in the fourth quarter after Scott Burley left with some cramps. Campbell spent last year at Hargrave Military Academy, so the 6-foot-7 lineman is physically more mature than most freshmen.
"We gotta play him," coach Ralph Friedgen said. "We don't have enough linemen. We might as well get him in. He's going to be a good player. In an ideal world, I'd like to redshirt him. But right now, we don’t have that luxury."
As for some other guys who got a rare look, take a look at this list of guys who were in at the start of the last drive of the game.
QB Chris Turner
RB Morgan Green
FB Steven Pfister
WR Kevin Gresham
WR Matt Goldberg
T Bruce Campbell
C Danny Edwards
G Lee Oliver
T Kyle Sappington
OK, so it's two shy of a complete lineup (and no, the Terps didn't play only nine guys in garbage time). But one thing all nine of these guys have in common is they'd never played a game at Maryland before last night.
Lost in the shuffle of all of Maryland's quarterback drama was Obi Egekeze's steady debut as the Terps' field goal and PAT kicker.
He couldn't have gotten off to a much better start, drilling a 42-yard field goal in the first quarter. That kick certainly doesn't guarantee a great season for the junior, but it should provide some relief that he thrived in a game.
Of course, kickers are a different breed of player, and it's awful hard for players at other positions to offer up much insight on their kicking teammates. Nevertheless, a reporter asked wideout Darrius Heyward-Bey about Egekeze's pre-game routine on the field, which apparently began more than two hours before kickoff.
"I didn't even notice Obi before the game," Heyward-Bey said. "I'm not gonna lie. But I know Obi's ready to go. He has big eyes, so he's always ready to go."
If it seemed like a while since Maryland dropped 30 points on an opponent -- any opponent -- that's because it was.
The Terrapins' 31-14 victory over Villanova on Saturday marked their largest offensive output since a 33-30 overtime victory at North Carolina late in the 2005 season.
It had been 15 games since Maryland inched over the 30-point plateau. As a point of reference, the Terps hit that mark 10 times in the entire 2002 season.
In case you're curious, it was the longest such streak at Maryland since an 18-game stretch from Oct. 26, 1996, to Sept. 19, 1998. That covered the final days of the Mark Duffner Era and the first year or so of the forgettable Ron Vanderlinden regime.
And if you want to have some fun with numbers (and like remembering those days of football futility), that drought stretches to 24 games when the threshold is bumped up to 31 points.
Fear not, Maryland fans who are upset at the loss of quarterback Josh Portis to an academic issue. Your lot in life could be much worse. Just look around the ACC:
* Virginia was a D1scourse sleeper heading into the season. Instead, the Cavaliers are hibernating. Lord Groh of Hooville can't be happy with a little more than 100 yards offense at Wyoming. Already disgruntled Virginia fans can't be happy with Lord Groh. Fortunately, Duke is up next, but there aren't many major college teams besides Michigan that should be as disappointed as Virginia.
* N.C. State, already hurting from a 25-23 loss to Central Florida, found out today tailback Toney Baker suffered a season-ending knee injury. So the running back tandem of Baker and Andre Brown -- arguably State's greatest strength -- has been halved, and the Wolfpack have a quarterback brouhaha on their hands after Harrison Beck played well in relief of Daniel Evans.
* Wake Forest, shredded for five touchdowns by Boston College's Matt Ryan, lost quarterback Riley Skinner for an indefinite period with a separated right shoulder. For those scoring at home, that's two straight years the Demon Deacons lost their starting QB to injury in the opener.
Brett Hodges was 17-for-23 for 130 yards, a touchdown and an interception in relief.
* Duke is ... well, Duke, unfortunately. The Blue Devils were thrashed 45-14 by Connecticut to drop their 21st straight game. Coming up: A four-game road trip, including a couple chances to avoid tying and breaking the school record losing streak of 23 games set from 1999 to 2001.
* The ACC overall can't feel too great about the opening weekend. Central Florida, Connecticut and Wyoming were a combined 14-22 last year, and all managed to poach victories. Virginia Tech was lackluster overall and shaky in the running game against East Carolina. Maryland and North Carolina won easily as the conference claimed the ACC-CAA Showdown.
The best news for the league was Georgia Tech's walloping of Notre Dame. It's no secret the Yellow Jackets' defense is superb, and they throttled the quarterback rotation of the overmatched Irish. So while Chan Gailey's bunch should feel good, there's a decent chance that beating Notre Dame won't look quite as good down the road as in most seasons.
You know those little tags people get stuck wearing at get-to-know functions? Apparently, walk-on football players at Maryland don't get them on their first day.
I asked coach Ralph Friedgen the name of the walk-on quarterback who joined the Terps last week, if only so that I wouldn't refer to him as "random walk-on dude" as I went down the full inventory of active quarterbacks for a story in tomorrow's paper now that Josh Portis is ineligible for the season.
"I don't even know his name yet to be honest," Friedgen said.
When the two things reporters know about you are that you're short (generously [listed at 5-10] according to his page on the George Mason baseball site from last year) and the coach doesn't know your name, it usually doesn't bode well.
http://gomason.cstv.com/sports/m-basebl/mtt/levine_mitchell00.html
But nevertheless, he's the No. 4 quarterback for the Terps, which is exactly where former blue-chip recruit Jeremy Ricker was before he decided to transfer in the spring and where Bobby Sheahin was before he skedaddled for Division III Salisbury last month.
As for the Terps' other three remaining quarterbacks -- Jordan Steffy, Chris Turner and Jamarr Robinson -- it's clear Ralph will be forced to have all of them ready to play each week. The shortage makes it tempting to minimize the danger for the quarterbacks, particularly Steffy.
The junior scrambled for 47 yards in Saturday's victory over Villanova, and that is an attractive skill to keep under any circumstances.
"I don't want to take that element out of the game," Friedgen said. "I don't want to play scared, either. I think we just have to play smart and hopefully he stays well. Sometimes, there's more danger of getting hit in the passing game than the running game. In the running game, you normally see it coming."
Some tidbits from Maryland coach Ralph Friedgen's Sunday teleconference with reporters:
* Obviously, the bulk of the questions dealt with the impact of Josh Portis' ineligibility on the Terps. It would have been a big topic if the first opponent was, say, Florida State. Since it was Villanova, a decidedly less redoubtable foe, it dominated discussion.
Ralph said he knew about Portis' situation -- a violation of the university's code of academic integrity -- at the end of the spring semester. However, he did not know when a final judgment would be made.
Hence, all the talk of using Portis was probably not some bizarre posturing to throw off Villanova, though it makes all the sense in the world now why the camp quarterback competition never seemed like much of a competition. Who would want to go into the season with a guy who could be lost for off-field reasons at a moment's notice?
Anyway, Portis still has two years of eligibility remaining, and Friedgen plans to keep the sophomore busy with scout team work to free up third-stringer Jamarr Robinson to prepare for an emergency role.
There's also the hope he can keep Portis' development going even though he can't play in games.
"I'm going to try to help that as best I can," Friedgen said. "My job is to make him the best he can possibly be. My job is also winning football games. I gotta try to do both. Right now, the overriding thing is I have to win football games. I wouldn't be doing the team a service if I didn't do that. That doesn't mean I can't organize it so I can doing the best I can to help him develop. I have to work that out from an organizational standpoint while giving us the best chance to win."
* Ralph reiterated there were no major injuries from Saturday's season-opening 31-14 victory over Villanova.
* At right tackle, the split in plays was "48 or 45" for Dane Randolph and 33 for Jack Griffin. Randolph started after Friedgen said during the week Griffin pulled ahead. Look for those snaps to even out a little bit; Randolph was in during a couple long drives and the two alternated series in the middle two quarters.
* Friedgen said tailback Keon Lattimore broke 10 tackles against the Wildcats. "That's the best game he's played since he's been here."
* Also in the "BGHPSHBH" category: nose tackle Carlos Feliciano, who had six tackles (including 1.5 for loss)
* Both lines earned praise. Both Lattimore and Lance Ball averaged more than five yards a carry, and the Terps' defensive front generated four sacks. That happened once all year (against N.C. State) in 2006 and just twice (Virginia and at N.C. State) in 2005.
* Interesting closing note: Kicker Obi Egekeze drilled a 57-yard attempt during practice on Friday in what was supposed to be an opportunity for the Terps to try to return a missed attempt. For the record, the Maryland record is 54 yards, set by Steve Mike-Mayer in 1973 and matched in 2003 by Nick Novak.
Sometimes, you just have to wonder how the world survived without Al Gore's Invention.
This weekend brought one of those instances.
When it was revealed Saturday that Maryland quarterback Josh Portis was suspended for the year due to a "mistake involving the University Academic Code of Conduct."
As it turns out, there are two major conduct codes at Maryland, neither of which go by that specific name. There's the a "code of student conduct" that handles most legal infractions and a "code of academic integrity" that is pretty self-explanatory.
And naturally, both of them are online.
Obviously, an "academic issue" as delineated by the athletic department release distributed before Saturday's game will fall under the code of academic integrity. And sure enough, that code includes an explanation that fits with the facts available -- that is, a season of ineligibility and a decision handed down by the university.
That would fall under the subhead of The Grade of XF in the academic code. An XF is the grade the university assigns "to denote a failure to accept and exhibit the fundamental value of academic honesty," a catch-all phrase that covers cheating, plagiarizing, fabrication and helping someone else cheat.
According to section 31 of the code, "No student with an 'XF' on the student's transcript shall be permitted to represent the University in any extracurricular activity, or run for or hold office in any student organization which is allowed to use University facilities, or which receives University funds."
Section 32 covers how to get rid of the XF, which is considered an academic scarlet letter. A petition might be filed to the student honor council, which can remove the XF if :
a) 12 months have passed since it was imposed;
b) The student completes a non-credit seminar on academic integrity;
and c) There is no further evidence of academic dishonesty or similar acts.
And that, it would seem, probably provides some explanation of the process behind Maryland's biggest surprise of the first week.
There were only a few changes to Maryland's depth chart after the first game, which isn't a surprise after a 31-14 victory.
Quarterback Josh Portis (out for the year-academic issue) is off the chart altogether. Dane Randolph is listed ahead of Jack Griffin at right tackle, a flip-flop from a week ago. And Isaiah Williams is atop the list at Z, ahead of LaQuan Williams.
The latter two changes make sense on the context of Saturday's game. Randolph started and took a majority of snaps, and Isaiah Williams also drew a nod on the first play.
-- Patrick Stevens
Just before I left Byrd Stadium on Saturday, scout.com's Seth Hoffman wondered aloud if Josh Portis' ineligibility meant the end of the sales of his No. 12 jersey. I was officially intrigued.
As you might recall, a little reconnaissance mission last month in the student union showed that three jerseys were being sold in the university bookstore: No. 1 (Erin Henderson), No. 8 (Darrius Heyward-Bey) and No. 12 (Portis). Henderson and Hey-Bey made a ton of sense; Portis was the more unusual choice, since he was a backup to presumptive and eventual starter Jordan Steffy.
Well, I swung by both the team store in Comcast Center and the University Book Center in the union this morning, and there is no trace of No. 12. There's plenty of No. 1 and No. 8, and even a leftover No. 14 (Sam Hollenbach) from last year. Can't say I blame anyone for acting so quickly. And those jerseys might have been gone on Saturday; I just didn't get a chance to look.
There is this bright side -- No. 12 hasn't been shuttled to the clearance rack, where the jerseys of former basketball players Jamar Smith (No. 1), John Gilchrist (No. 11) and D.J. Strawberry (No. 5) all currently reside in the union bookstore.
... for understatement of the season was delivered by Maryland coach Ralph Friedgen today.
The Terps are headed down to Florida International on Saturday and will play at the cavernous Orange Bowl. The Golden Panthers are coming off a 59-0 loss, which cannot be considered even remotely positive for a first game under a new coach who inherited a team that went 0-12 last year.
"They had a tough time up at Penn State last week," Friedgen said.
No kidding.
He also mentioned tailback A'Mod Ned, who Maryland fans might remember being chased down by Josh Wilson in last year's 14-10 squeaker at Byrd Stadium.
"He has a chance to be the all-time leading rusher for Florida International," Friedgen said. "Right now, he didn't play against Penn State. I don't know if he's injured or what."
The reason that's amusing is that Florida International has only had a program since 2002. Being the all-time leading rusher at Nebraska or Southern Cal? Impressive. A team in only its sixth season? With all respect to Rashod Smith and his 2,195 yards (a fine career, no doubt), it doesn't mean as much here.
Other notes on FIU...
* Xavier Shannon, the son of Miami coach Randy Shannon, is the starter at left tackle.
* Antwan Barnes, the star defensive end from last year, is gone. Friedgen didn't hide his relief of that.
* Chris Cook is the punter, and he got a heck of a workout last week. Florida International punted 12 times, and he's credited with 11 of those attempts.
"He's a left-footed punter and he does a good job and it's something we have to be concerned about," Friedgen said.
It was a fairly vanilla Tuesday in College Park, which will be followed no doubt by a vanilla Saturday at Florida International (barring a catastrophe, of course).
Josh Portis was at practice, a few days after his ineligibility for the season was revealed. Meanwhile, coach Ralph Friedgen said Chris Turner will take over the snaps Portis had been taking, essentially doubling his workload in practice.
From what Ralph said and I saw, it looked like there were no injury surprises. Junior linebacker Chase Bullock and redshirt freshman tailback Da'Rel Scott could both play on Saturday, but both are buried on the depth chart after missing so much of camp with nagging injuries. Scott at least could get a chance on kick returns, though Terrell Skinner played well there on Saturday.
Bullock might have a tougher time overcoming his injury fallout. Both Dave Philistin and Adrian Moten moved ahead of him during his absence, and neither is a senior. Ralph has raved about Moten for the last couple weeks, and it seems like it's only a matter of time before he etches out a substantial role for himself at one of the linebacker positions.
The Terps got 62 players in against Villanova on Saturday, the most since 63 played against Temple in 2005. They might not get that many into Saturday's game, if only because it's on the road and the travel roster will probably be smaller.
If there's one thing that is always lucrative for the campus coffers and always a disaster for everyone else, it's the parking situation at Maryland.
So a Thursday night game -- like the one coming to Byrd Stadium next Thursday -- will make for some pounding headaches.
Best advice: Arrive as early as possible for the 7:45 p.m. start and make sure you have a parking pass, since that's the magic ticket just to get your car on campus. There are some more tips here for what is almost certain to be a circus as 40,000-plus fans arrive and thousands of students depart at the same time.
Maryland's Ralph Friedgen juggles his duties as head coach, offensive coordinator and face of the program on an everyday basis.
Yesterday, he managed to squeeze in interviews in three mediums in less than 90 minutes -- with a drive from campus tossed in as well.
Ralph lumbered in from practice a little after 6:30 yesterday evening and was quickly informed his spot on Comcast SportsNet would begin at 6:45. So he squeezed in a session with the print reporters who crammed into his office before hopping back to his desk to take care of his television obligations.
By 8, he was supposed to be at his weekly radio show at the Outback Steakhouse in Aspen Hill. I didn't listen in -- the crossover between Ralph's spiel to the media and to the fans is enough to make me think I'm in the movie "Groundhog Day" -- but I'd bet it wasn't as amusing or harrowing as what Al Groh endured this week.
Georgetown's basketball schedule is out for anyone interested in planning a trip to see a team that reached the Final Four last year.
Unfortunately, many of the intriguing subplots will unfold away from Verizon Center, such as:
* The Nov. 21 return game to Ball State, where Ronny Thompson, Georgetown coach John Thompson III's brother, resigned over the summer. You might have heard about the hullabaloo and accusations on both sides of that flap. And "flap" doesn't begin to describe it, but since this is about the schedule and not making sense of anything else, I'll move on.
* The Nov. 28 return game to Old Dominion, which knocked off Georgetown early last season.
* The Dec. 5 trip to Alabama in the first Big East/SEC Challenge.
* The Dec. 22 visit to Memphis in a showdown of a pair of national title contenders.
* The season's only meetings with Pittsburgh (Jan. 14), West Virginia (Jan. 26) and Marquette (March 1) are on the road.
As for the home offerings? John Beilein and Michigan visit on Nov. 15, and the season's only games with Connecticut (Jan. 12) and Villanova (Feb. 11) are at Verizon Center. Thanks to the Big East's decision to boost the league schedule to 18 games, every team plays each other at least once in the 16-school confederation. Georgetown draws Louisville, St. John's and Syracuse for home-and-home duty.
Just waiting out another football practice here in College Park. We'll only talk to Ralph after practice, the final availability for the weekend trip to Florida International.
With player availability on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, the guys shuffle past the offensive line meeting room. Some trudge up the stairs, while others take the nearby elevator up a floor. The split is probably close to 50-50.
Official beat diva Heather Dinich of the Baltimore Sun wondered yesterday why in the world wideout Darrius Heyward-Bey -- one of the best athletes on the team -- would take the elevator. So there seemed to be only one logical thing for me to do, since I was planning to talk to him anyway: Ask him why.
"I like to take the elevator because those stairs, my feet, my knees -- it's rough," said Heyward-Bey, who had a lingering foot injury during camp that kept him sidelined more than a week. "If I had to, I'm taking the stairs. But if the elevator's open, take it. Pretty much every day I take it."
Keep in mind, this one-story ride occurs after practice every day, so if there is time for taking it easy, it's after a two hour-plus workout.
There are days Maryland coach Ralph Friedgen returns to his office ready to joke with reporters after practice and others when he's so fed up with what he just watched for two hours that he wants them gone as quickly as possible.
Today was the rare mix of both kinds of moments.
Ralph started things off with an unusual exchange, leaving little doubt he was ticked about something.
"Hey, were you talking to the kickers out there?" Friedgen asked.
"I was in class," said a befuddled Andrew Zuckerman of the Diamondback. He was not alone in not understanding what the heck was going on.
"Huh?" Friedgen said. "Who was the guy talking to the kickers. He had a pad and pen."
"It wasn't him. I don't know who it was," said the Terrapin Times' Keith Cavanaugh, whose decade-plus around the program would make him as good a candidate as any to recognize someone at football practice.
Friedgen, though, still had some things to say.
"Just so we're all on the same page, you don't talk to the players while practice is going on. I don't care if they're kickers or not, is that clear? Or you will not be at practice ever again. OK? It was a guy with a blue hat on. ... Find out from [punter Travis] Baltz who that was, OK? I told him not to talk to him, and he followed him all the way down again and talked to him."
In four seasons of covering Ralph (2001 at the Diamondback and the last three years with the Times), I can't ever remember a rant quite like that. Not that it wasn't warranted, just really bizarre.
Anyway, a shaky practice hadn't helped the big fella's mood any. But he made me laugh quite a bit with his reply to a question about the Terps' 14-10 victory over Florida International last year.
"I knew that going in that they were a very good football team. I can't believe they didn't win a game. I bet every team they played was a knockdown, drag-out fight. ..."
Florida International, of course, was involved in a ridiculous brawl when it played Miami last October in its most recent game at the Orange Bowl. And at that point, I was willing to take the risk Ralph wasn't making a joke and just cracked up because the first thing I associate with Florida International (besides its airport-like name) is that melee.
"No pun intended," he said with a grin. "You had to laugh at that."
Indeed I did. The Ralph Friedgen Comedy Hour. Coming to Miami this Saturday. Plenty of good seats at the Orange Bowl still available.
Apparently, Maryland's Ralph Friedgen is ready to award a scholarship to a walk-on.
But the walk-on doesn't know just yet (or at least didn't as of 6 p.m. today). And neither do we.
"Well, I haven't told him yet, but I have made a decision," Friedgen said. "I'll let you know when I tell him."
Friedgen said he might be able to answer that question Monday, so that's when that topic will get broached again.
In another note, Friedgen said linebacker Chase Bullock probably would play at Florida International on Saturday. Bullock sat out the opener with an ankle injury, but it looks like he's more likely to be in as a defensive end in a nickel or dime package than at middle linebacker, where he was the starter at the beginning of camp.
During the ACC teleconference on Wednesday, a reporter tried to get Maryland's Ralph Friedgen to explain just how a trip to Florida International wound up on the Terps' schedule.
Friedgen only said the deal got done four or five years ago. But the really interesting thing is that similar scheduling happened before -- and is supposed to happen again soon.
Saturday marks Maryland's first trip to a non-BCS school since the 2005 visit to Temple (the Owls had just been booted from the Big East). Here's a look at the last five trips to non-BCS conference schools, based on the conferences' configuration at that time:
10/8/05 at Temple: W, 38-7
9/23/03 at Eastern Michigan: W, 37-13
8/28/03 at Northern Illinois: L, 20-13 (OT)
10/28/95 at Louisville: L, 31-0
9/2/95 at Tulane: W, 29-10
That pretty much takes things back to the conference shufflings of the early 1990s, like the Big East's formation and the decision of several other independents (notably Penn State and Florida State) to join leagues.
Maryland, by the way, is supposed to visit Middle Tennessee State next year.
Here's a look at the last time each ACC team traveled to a non-BCS school's home field for a regular season game. (North Carolina, like Maryland, is playing at a non-BCS team this week when the Tar Heels visit East Carolina). Obviously, in Clemson's case, the definition of “non-BCS team” had to be stretched since it goes back so far. I just used circa 1992 conference alignments for the Tigers.
9/1/07 Virginia at Wyoming: L, 23-3
9/16/06 N.C. State at Southern Mississippi: L, 37-17
8/31/06 Boston College at Central Michigan: W, 31-24
10/15/05 Miami at Temple: W, 34-3
10/8/05 Maryland at Temple: W, 38-7
9/3/05 Duke at East Carolina: L, 24-21
10/16/04 North Carolina at Utah: L, 46-16
9/11/04 Wake Forest at East Carolina: W, 31-17
8/28/03 Georgia Tech at Brigham Young: L, 24-13
9/28/02 Virginia Tech at Western Michigan: W, 30-0
9/26/02 Florida State at Louisville: L, 26-20 (OT)
9/12/81 Clemson at Tulane: W, 13-5
I like to use the term "resident humorist" to describe players who quietly have an incredible sense of humor but don't always let reporters see it. An outgoing guy who will crack jokes all the time, like an Isaiah Gardner or Christian Varner, is certainly amusing, welcome and appreciated. But when I find someone with a wry sense of fun who can deadpan a reply perfectly, it's like hitting the lottery.
During Maryland's basketball season last year, Will Bowers was very much the resident humorist. Going into this football season, I knew defensive tackle Dre Moore would fill the same role.
He hasn't disappointed.
I asked him the other day when I was wrapping up work on a story about the defensive line just how long notoriously intense line coach Dave Sollazzo would let his players enjoy a victory before moving on to the next game. Moore would know; he had just collected a pair of sacks in the opener against Villanova.
"The carryover might last the length of the shower after the game," Moore offered.
Perfect.
Moore is also a favorite of coach Ralph Friedgen, who has watched the Charlotte, N.C., native grow from a constant headache -- "He wore me out," Friedgen said of Moore's constant transgressions during his first few seasons -- into one of the team's elder statesmen.
Friedgen is allowing players who are only taking a handful of classes to skip breakfast this season. But early in the semester, Ralph was surprised to learn Moore didn't go to a class.
"I went up to Dre and said ‘Hey, I have a report of you missing this class. If you miss class again, you're going to breakfast,'" Friedgen said. "He said 'Coach, I dropped the class. I'm not missing class. I'm taking this other class.' I went and checked it out with Heather [Arianna, the head of the team's academic support unit] and he was telling me the truth. ... I said 'You got three hours to graduate, I wanna make sure you graduate.' I'm just proud of that kid."
I know it happened Wednesday, and it sort of slipped off my football-heavy radar for a couple days, but there was a big shake-up in lacrosse when Harvard hired Navy assistant John Tillman to take over its program.
Tills, one of the all-time good guys I've encountered anywhere, is incredibly deserving of this opportunity. He was the Mids' offensive coordinator over the last several seasons, and it is impossible to separate his influence in maximizing the parts at his disposal and Navy's rise back to a regular top-10 team since 2004. All those players on those teams? Yep, Tillman had a strong hand in recruiting them.
I'll miss the chance to pick his brain whenever I'm in Annapolis in the spring, not just about his team but of others as well. I usually made sure to get 15-to-20 minutes whenever I was working on a feature on a Navy player just to hear what he had to say on an array of topics.
(I know I wasn't alone in that thinking; Christian Swezey of The Washington Post usually employed the same strategy. Inevitably at the game the next weekend, we would say to each other "That's what Tillman was talking about..." or "Tillman pointed that out..." at some juncture).
I always came out of those discussions with a far better perspective of why Navy did some of the things it did and a better sense of why other teams were succeeding or struggling. And without fail, I left wondering why the heck someone hadn't hired this guy to take over their program yet.
Well, now Harvard has. And it was an absolute slam dunk.
A lot of people in the lacrosse world consider the Crimson a sleeping giant. After all, Princeton collected six titles in a decade from 1992 to 2001, and Cornell (Tillman's alma mater) is a traditional power. Why not Harvard, with its oodles of cash?
For whatever reason, it just hasn't happened. Harvard has one NCAA tournament appearance in the last decade, a shocking and highly debatable inclusion in 2006 that predictably ended with a rout at Syracuse in the first round. The Crimson hasn't won a tournament game since 1996, and has just not been a factor on the national level.
That might just be ready to change. I don't honestly know enough about the support Harvard gives its program, though (a) there's certainly more than enough money there to begin with and (b) the fact the school is hosting the final four next spring is incentive to get better quick.
But I'm certain of this: Hiring Tillman is about as good a signal as the Crimson can give that they want to become a postseason regular. Maybe it won't happen in 2008, but Harvard will be contending for NCAA berths in the years to come.
Just checked into my hotel near the airport in Fort Lauderdale, and I've noticed five things since I landed in South Florida.
1. It is unnecessarily muggy down here, but I knew it would be that way.
2. Despite the humidity, it's still nicer than being unable to get any sleep on a plane with one too many shrieking children.
3. West Virginia: Anything but impressive, especially on defense, as it nurses a 27-23 lead at the end of the third quarter.
4. What did Bill Curry ever do to deserve getting shuttled down to duty analyzing ESPN Classic's broadcast of Army and Rhode Island? (No disrespect intended, but it sure isn’t the prime time ESPN game).
5. Florida International might not have won a football game since 2005, but the school sure doled out some cash to advertise in today's Miami Herald.
Apparently, FIU realized the only way it would make the front of the sports section is to get into a brawl with a prominent program. And since that didn't work out too well last year, they'll take a banner ad at the bottom of the sports front touting tonight's game against Maryland.
On page 5D, there's a full page ad with the slogan "Let's Build This Together." Also included is an offer for free season tickets for five games at the Orange Bowl this year in return for buying season tickets next year when the Golden Panthers’ on-campus stadium has been reconstructed.
Will be leaving the hotel for the OB shortly, but just wanted to quickly break down what's facing Maryland tonight at Florida International.
Maryland is deeper and more talented than Florida International, and might just have it in them to apply an all-out drubbing.
I'm just not betting on it.
The last time Maryland won by 30 was Oct. 8, 2005 against Temple (38-7).
That was the Terps' largest margin of victory since a 34-point win over Duke on Sept. 25, 2004 (55-21).
The last time Maryland drilled a team by more than 40 was Sept. 13, 2003, 61-0 over The Citadel.
Maryland's track record over the last three-plus seasons says the Terps will win, but not in overwhelming fashion. Let's call it a comfortable 28-7 victory, which would probably satisfy Ralph Friedgen considering a top-five team is about to roll into College Park.
In the words of the Musburglar, I am BLOGGING LIVE from the second Depression-era erector set Maryland has visited in the last year.
With about 90 minutes to kickoff, it is empty in the Orange Bowl. Somehow, the epic Maryland-Florida International grudge match has not captivated the hearts of the notoriously fickle fans of Miami. What a surprise.
In any case, this is one of those times many folks might ask the question "What am I doing here?" Well, in this specific case, it's because Maryland is willing to do 2-for-1 deals with non-BCS schools rather than simply shell out a ton of cash for someone to be happy with a single visit.
Over/under on attendance has to be about 15,000, maybe a tick over. That's about how much Florida International drew for each of its home games.
Expect Maryland to want to get finish its first visit to this stadium since 1987 as quickly as possible. The turnaround for the Thursday game against West Virginia is a concern to Ralph Friedgen, who seemed displeased to learn this week that the Mountaineers would play at 11 a.m. against Marshall. But the big fella probably didn't want an identical starting down here in college football's answer to Hades.
A few things of note as Maryland works out before tonight's game at Florida International.
* Redshirt freshman Da'Rel Scott made the trip AND is working out with the kickoff returners. Also back there, as expected, are Terrell Skinner and Keon Lattimore. One guy I haven't been able to spot is Morgan Green, who doesn't appear to be in uniform.
* Some mildly unexpected names on the travel roster: walk-on tailback Dan Bonato and fullback Haroon Brown. Bonato wasn't even around at the start of camp, but wound up as a carries machine to keep Lattimore and Lance Ball healthy, and he might be a replacement if Green was left home.
* Apparently, fans aren't going to be permitted on one side of the bowl, which isn't all that unusual for a televised game in a near-empty venue. The trouble is, the side of the field that will pop up on ESPN360's broadcast is the one without any fans.
There won't be too much reason to provide updates from the OB, it would appear, but thought I'd point these facts out with Maryland up 16-0.
* Keon Lattimore has 80 yards in less than seven minutes, including a pair of touchdowns.
* Maryland has already surpassed its total points against Florida International from last year (14).
* Florida International's "SAFETY-INT" start on offense does not auger well for the rest of the night.
Got back from Miami a few hours ago. One of these days, I'll learn not to take the earliest flight out of the airport, since those 5 a.m. wakeup calls can be simply brutal. What helped today was there were only 26 people (and no wailing infants) on my flight back, so it was "Choose Your Own Row Day."
Before a look back at some of the game, I wanted to revisit something Maryland coach Ralph Friedgen said near the end of his postgame remarks last night at the Orange Bowl.
"We'll find out what we are in the next four weeks because I don't think anybody in the country has as tough a schedule as we do in the next four weeks...," Friedgen said. "Tell me anybody who has four games like that."
Official Beat Diva Heather Dinich of the Baltimore Sun offered up Florida International's opening stretch, but Friedgen wanted to have tunnel vision and specified it had to be over the next four weeks. And to be fair, West Virginia-at Wake Forest-at Rutgers-Georgia Tech is no picnic.
There are comparable stretches awaiting other teams. To wit:
* Alabama: The Crimson Tide gets Arkansas and Georgia at home, plays Florida State in Jacksonville and then returns home for Houston.
* Florida: The defending champs get Tennessee at home, visit crazy Ed Orgeron and Ole Miss, come back to Gainesville to play Auburn, then travel to Louisiana State.
* North Carolina: Butch Davis gets Virginia at home next week, then visits South Florida and Virginia Tech before a highly anticipated date with Miami in Chapel Hill.
* Washington: The Huskies only play the next three weeks, but those games are Ohio State-at UCLA-Southern California. Even with a bye, that's a nasty sequence.
I thought about including Notre Dame (at Michigan-Michigan State-at Purdue-at UCLA), but that isn't as arduous as the other four teams listed. Not that the Irish won't struggled to win twice in that stretch.
Florida and Washington might have the Terps trumped, but probably not by much, so I'll have to resist rolling my eyes at Ralph's bemoaning of the fate handed down from Mount Pigskin by the scheduling gods. This time, he has a point.
In case anyone didn't notice, Maryland's run defense held its third straight opponent below 100 yards in yesterday's 26-10 defeat of Florida International.
There was Purdue's 21 yards in the bowl game, Villanova's 11-yard outing in the season opener and Florida International's 82-yard night at the Orange Bowl. That's 114 rushing yards in the last three games, and the first time in the Ralph Friedgen Era three straight opponents have failed to crack triple digits. Not shabby.
I wouldn't bet on the streak reaching four games, if only because I have a hard time believing many teams can bottle up both Steve Slaton and Pat White. One of the two has run for at least 100 yards in 19 of the Mountaineers' last 22 games.
Another stat does bear repeating: Maryland limited Florida International to less than 100 yards in both the rushing and passing games, the first time the Terps have done so since a 61-0 thrashing of The Citadel in 2003. It might be hard to get carried away by such numbers against an FIU, but it will also make it difficult to pass judgment if there are struggles on Thursday.
Well, Maryland's latest chance to knock off West Virginia is just a few days away. And that means the chance to hear "Country Roads" more than enough over the next few days at practice.
Actually, that's a better thing to listen to than the contrived crowd noise Ralph Friedgen has piped into practice. It sounds like a cross between a country fair, a monster truck rally and a busy downtown intersection at 5 p.m., and it was entirely unnecessary last week leading into a game at the cavernous Orange Bowl that was about 15 percent full.
This is a compacted week. I expect to hear at least twice in the next three days how "Sunday is Monday, Monday is Tuesday, Tuesday is Wednesday and Wednesday is Thursday and Friday." I don't know if that's Newspeak or simply channeling Mustapha Mond, but I already have a bad habit of losing track of days. That only makes it worse.
Among the highlights today: The Big East conference call (West Virginia's Rich Rodriguez goes at 11:30 a.m.), practice at 4, and then the first chance to talk to Ralph and players since just after Saturday's 26-10 defeat of Florida International.
As for that game, I'm trying to forget as much of it as I can, from the punting parade to the Amazing Peeling Coral Green Seats in the press box (the best part about it might have been the exuberant public address announcer). So let's never speak of it again.
I'm not planning any great manifesto on West Virginia this week, but figured it wouldn't hurt to hear the coachspeak on Maryland's offense from the Mountaineers' Rich Rodriguez directly.
Obviously, there were no surprises (there rarely are on these teleconferences). Jordan Steffy is an athletic option at quarterback for Maryland. Keon Lattimore is a bruising tailback. Boring questions, after all, are usually met with stock answers.
No matter. Rodriguez spen