Turtledroppings.com – Maryland Football And Basketball Blog

While my co-editors are busy driving across the country searching for wine and hot springs or hunting for snakes in the garage, I have been thinking about the start of the Maryland Football Season. We are now 39 days away from the opening match up with the Miami Hurricanes. This off season has been busy with coaching changes, player changes, uniform changes, and rules violations. Here are a few thoughts on each.

First, Kenny Tate is moving to strong side linebacker from free safety. According to Tate this isn’t that big of a change. He will still have the freedom to move around but will now be closer to the line of scrimmage. He made 58 solo tackles last year. I would expect his overall tackle numbers to go up. If Tate isn’t worried, then I’m not worried. Kenny! is my favorite Terp and I wish him the best in his senior season. He turned down a potential 2nd round draft pick to come back to the Terps and I expect that he will be an all ACC selection again this year.

Next item is the number of players on the sideline for the Terps. Since Edsall was hired, MD has lost 12 players for various reasons. I’m worried that by the middle of the season we may only have a skeleton of a team. I know each school loses kids every year but Edsall really seems to be cleaning out the closet. Is it him or natural attrition? I’m not positive but I think Edsall has something to do with it. Zach Kerr left the team this past week. He was a contributor last year however his grades were not up to par. Maybe Friedgen was easier on these guys. I know Edsall is going to be held to a very high standard by the administration so it might be best to trim the fat off the bone early on.

The third item I would like to discuss is the Terps new uniforms. I have read that one change is the removal of the players name from the back of the jersey. This works for Penn State but I’m not sure it will go over well here. UMD has no tradition of name less jerseys. The kids these days want to see their names all over the TV screen. Will this help with recruiting? I don’t think so. Will this help UMD sell more shirts to the fans? I doubt it. Will this help with team unity? It actually might. I do know that based on the artist rendering of the jerseys released last year, I probably won’t like the new uniforms. I loved the uni’s under Friedgen. The white helmet with Terps on it looked great.  Another looker was the black helmet with the red M. I think a helmet with Maryland spelled out is tacky. Go with the flag, Terps, or the UMD logo and be done with it.

Lastly, the Terps have to suffer through the season with only 17.5 hours of practice/prep time per week this year due to practice violations under the previous administration. (We still love you Ralph!) Will this be a big deal?Maybe. With new coaches and new systems, I think they will need all the time they can get to prepare for the season. I’m sure they will work with the system and still get things done.  The offensive and defensive captains will have study sessions and film sessions on their own without the coaches. They will find a way to be prepared for the season.

Those are my pre-season thoughts. I hope my fellow contributors can get back to posting regularly. That is if golf, the pool, work, or kids don’t get in the way. See you all September 5th!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 27th, 2011 at 12:43 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.