And on the Fifth Week…Maryland Rested
Still a little giddy about the Terps loss on Saturday. What?! Giddy about a lose?? Absolutely!! Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, it is sort of lame. But to me, the fun of college football is the ability to compete week in and week out, knowing we can at least make 3 hours of TV interesting on a Saturday in the fall, is good news. I personally was preparing myself for a repeat of 2011 where I only watched the games to grind my teeth and look for more evidence that Anderson and Edsall were sent here from another planet to destroy our program.
But if this young team comes out and plays like they did Saturday each and every week, call me interested. At 2-2 unfortunately interested is about as optimistic as I can get, but still I’ll take it. I don’t think we can get close to a bowl bid, but the way this team played in Morgantown, who on our schedule looks unbeatable….OK, I’ll give you Florida State, but watch that WVU game where we coughed up 10 points, only to lose by 10 points AT a top 10 teams home stadium. Does UNC intimidate you now? How about BC? NC State anyone? UVA? Wake? No not at all, so who knows!
Anyway, going into our bye, just a couple things that make me giddy. Stefon Diggs, when is the last time a Freshman has been this electric in College Park, every time he touches the ball, I find myself holding my breath for a half a second. This guy is going to be good. Heck this guy is good. And I can’t believe he is ours. If you gave out grades at this stage in the game, give Diggs an A or A+. Let’s start printing those “Can You Digg it?” shirts now.
Another thing is the defense. I knew coming in, as I’m sure most of you knew, our defense was the strength of our team. But I judged that fact by looking at them compared to our offense. But you know what, they are right good (as my in-laws from Salisbury would say…for some reason people on the Lower Shore substitute “right” for “real”). So this has been a surprise.
Now of course, maybe WVU was sleep walking, and maybe we pulled that performance out of our you know what, but with a team this young, that looked like some maturity and coming together. If that is in fact the 2012 Maryland team, then our era of rebuilding could be shorter than we had feared.
I know, I know, there goes old optimist Bob on one of his fantasy journeys, but you know what. I’m buying into this team. As Chris wrote, we’ve seen more veteran and talented Terps teams lay an egg in that situation against WVU teams, that weren’t as good as this one, so why not believe?
I’m climbing aboard the band wagon, and though 2012 may not be our year we return to a bowl game…but maybe, just maybe that year is closer than we could have dreamed as recently as a week ago.
So let’s beat Wake, get back to 3-2 and then see how things shake out. In my mind I’m only conceding the Clemson and FSU games from here on out, which leaves 6 up for grabs. So who knows, but I do know this, thanks to Diggs and the Defense, winning football doesn’t seem so far away anymore.
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September 27th, 2012 at 1:11 pm
I would add Perry Hills to the list of things to feel good about. That kid spent a lot of time on his rear end on Sat but did a great job keeping us in the game. Think a lot of his success might be coming from him playing like he’s got nothing to lose, so hopefully he keeps that same attitude throughout the season. But for my own sanity, I’m still taking it just one game at a time.
October 2nd, 2012 at 3:37 pm
I’m pumped to see #6 back on the field. Tate has been my favorite Terp the past 4 years and the defense should be better with him in the lineup. I hope they let him freelance a bit. He is at his best roaming the field.