Though the Terrapin football players aren’t thrilled with the below-freezing temperatures and the glistening snow drifts that surround their practice fields, they certainly aren’t complaining.
It’s been a rough three months for the Terps, and even with a mediocre 6-6 record, the chance to play a little December football is quite an accomplishment. The team has endured quite a journey since Sept. 1, when it first sprinted onto the grass at Byrd Stadium for a game. And now that the quest has reached its closing stage, the team can find some warmth in what it has achieved thus far.
“I’m not happy with 6-6, and I don’t think our players are either,” head coach Ralph Friedgen said this week. “But I’m happy we got to go to a bowl game, and I’m happy our players played very well in their last game, and I’m happy the type of kids I had this year. How they hung in there, as tough as things were, it was very rewarding to be a part of this team. How hard they worked and how much they hung in there – they could have jumped ship and started pointing fingers, and I don’t think they ever did that.”
The adversity seemed unyielding at times this fall, and it started before the season even kicked off.
Minutes before the opening game against Villanova, the Athletics Department announced that quarterback Josh Portis, who was slated to serve as a backup to Jordan Steffy, would be ineligible to play for academic reasons.
The roller-coaster year continued from then on. Steffy suffered a concussion against then-No. 10 Rutgers, and the reins were handed to sophomore quarterback Chris Turner. Turner led the Terps to a comeback victory over the Scarlet Knights, helping to make his case for the starting job he would ultimately take over.
Injuries continued to take a devastating toll, especially on the offensive line. Preseason All-American Andrew Crummey went down with a broken leg, and fellow linemen Scott Burley, Jaimie Thomas and Bruce Campbell all suffered injuries as well. Linebackers Erin Henderson and Rick Costa, fullback Cory Jackson, defensive linemen Mack Frost and Travis Ivey and tight end Dan Gronkowski also comprised the Terps’ walking wounded. That’s quite a list.
“So many people had had already written us off and said, ‘Let’s see what happens next year,”‘ Henderson said. “For us to salvage six wins, and with a lot of big wins in there, too, we had a very successful season considering all the different adversity we had to deal with. For us to be where we are right now, we have to be happy. Not necessarily satisfied, but happy.”
With three games left on the schedule, the Terps picked up vital victories against then-No. 8 Boston College and N.C. State to become bowl-eligible.
Now, with most of the trek behind them, the players can enjoy their frigid days at practice and prepare for a largely unknown opponent in Oregon State. And to be honest, they should be proud to be playing in the program’s fifth bowl game in the last seven years.
Because through all the injuries and lineup shuffling, all the tough breaks and close losses, and all of my groaning about Friedgen’s offensive gameplan, the season is far from over. The Terps have a chance to finish 7-6 and achieve one of their primary preseason goals – win a bowl game.
“There’s a lot to be said about overcoming adversity and playing well with each other and keep grinding it out,” Crummey said. “Even though we didn’t do as well as I think we could have and should have, we did do what we could with what we had.”
All of the players seem to feel a sense of achievement that the Terps will be bowling after everything that’s transpired. And no one, it seems, cherishes the sense of pride more so than the seniors.
“We could have laid down, but the senior leadership stepped up,” senior running back Keon Lattimore said. “Our seniors can never quit. You’ve got the younger guys looking up to you, the guys who just got here and don’t know what to expect. If you go out to practice after a tough loss and you’re still running hard and practicing hard and playing hard, they don’t forget that. They’re going to thrive off of that.”
When I asked Lattimore what word summed up a tumultuous season in which the Terps were one of four teams to defeat two top-10 opponents, he didn’t hesitate to respond.
“Togetherness,” Lattimore said. “This team stayed together, man, no matter what. All of us. We had some tough times, but even last season, in the games that we won, we didn’t beat two top-10 teams. So you know, my senior season didn’t go the way I would have liked it to, but it’s not how it starts, it’s how it ends.”
It will end across the country, and a win will earn the team a tangible trophy that will commemorate all of the intangible battles the squad has fought all season.
“If we can go get this bowl game, we the champion of some type,” Lattimore said. “That’s being a champion. If we can go over to San Francisco and get this win, I think everything paid off.”
Until then, the Terps can find some mental calidity in the hurdles they’ve overcome, even when they’re practicing in the snow.
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