Beware of hungry, hungry Terps

Billed before the season started as the Rutgers football team’s toughest out-of-conference test, tomorrow’s road contest against Maryland has not shaped up to be much of a blockbuster.
Maryland should not be confused with a good team.
After all, the Terrapins did just lose to Middle Tennessee State two years in a row. One week earlier, in overtime, Maryland barely escaped Football Championship Subdivision juggernaut James Madison in College Park, Md.
It’s easy to push Maryland aside as a joke of a football team despite playing in a BCS conference.
That’s a mistake.
As badly as this team has played — and it’s been really poor — it still has the three biggest tools needed to win games against better opponents. It will not be more apparent for the Terrapins than this weekend against Rutgers.
They have good coaching.
They have talent on both sides of the ball.
Most importantly, they have hunger (insert Maryland head coach Ralph Friedgen joke here).
This is precisely the type of game the Scarlet Knights love to lose.
A team always in the thick of the Atlantic Coast Conference race should never start off 1-2, especially if that one win was a squeaker over JMU and the two losses were a 39-point massacre at California and a home loss to Middle Tennessee State.
One really can’t say that enough. It’s fun. They lost to Middle Tennessee State.
Yes, it’s worse than RU losing on the road to Navy — at least they made a Bowl game and also beat a ranked Wake Forest team. Middle Tennessee State is, well, Middle Tennessee State — a poor Sun Belt team.
Don’t think Maryland is going to turn up the heat and try to even its record against RU? There is motivation left and right, ranging everywhere from avenging Rutgers safety Joe Lefeged’s hit on quarterback Jordan Steffy two years ago to taking some of the heat off Friedgen and defensive coordinator Dom Brown.
It’s a situation that happens all the time in college football: A team comes out with a vengeance to erase the painful memories of a devastating or embarrassing loss the week before.
For the Knights, tomorrow’s game becomes a simple case of playing their own game and not worrying about Maryland’s drive. Rutgers head coach Greg Schiano’s motto of a one-game season will play an important factor in keeping RU’s minds focused solely on the task at hand and not taking the Terps lightly.
“We all know that Maryland is a great team,” Lefeged said. “First and foremost, they are well coached and have great athletes on the team. No matter what the record is, you have to come out and play hard every single week.”
Perhaps memories of last season’s 1-5 start skew the mind, and an eerie feeling arises over a game like this. The Knights come out flat, the gameplan is ineffective, questions arise over the use of running backs, the defensive playcalling and in-game adjustments are hardly noticeable.
This is a new season, and things change. But Rutgers is in danger of falling victim to a very, very hungry Maryland team in what should be a hostile environment in College Park.

— Matthew Stein accepts comments and criticisms at steinma@eden.rutgers.edu
 

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