I got so busy on Friday that I did not get to put out a football Friday column. However, it is Monday and a perfect time for a brief recap of the Terps win over Wake.
I know there is a lot going on in the DC/Balt sports world. All-in-all I am a Terps fan. Sure, I watched the Redskins, followed the Ravens score (I have lots of friends that are Ravens fans, not that there is anything wrong with that ;-), caught a few at bats of the Nationals game and watched most of the Orioles game.
I spent most of the afternoon intermittently reviewing the Terps win over Wake Forest. 19-14 was the final. I love the Terps defense. It is as strong a unit now under the immediate direction of Brian Stewart as it was under the genius of former defensive coordinator Don Brown. Overall it seems as though the defense just took a year off last year (2011 season) as it plummeted to one of the worst in the country. Now our guys are ranked #7 in the country.
There is a wide margin of error on the offensive side of the ball when you are married to the 7th best defense in America. And the Terps needed all of that margin as Maryland’s offense sputtered and stumbled around for much of the game.
I am not here to either praise nor bury anyone in today’s column. I will not blame the freshman quarterback, nor the offensive line or the coaching. I am going to “step back from the ledge” and put it simply. We need to find a way to use what we have to win. And we did this particular Saturday. I am not going to call out a quarterback or two starting offensive linemen who transferred or a coach that might have pushed them into that decision. We need to put some points on the board with the guys we have and stop turning the ball over.
The 7th ranked defense and an adequate offense wins the Wake game by 17 points, not five. So we celebrate (and we did) a win and enjoy being a 3-2 team. I look forward to possibly being 5-2 or 6-3 before the schedule gets tougher. It is possible to get 6 wins and go to a bowl. The Military Bowl would be as sweet a destination this season as it was a disappointing bowl assignment at the end of the 2010 season. Let’s go Terps.