If you ask any head coach in any sport about blowing out an inferior team, he will in all likelihood respond with some type of a cliché answer about how a win is a win.
But as the Terps defeated Division I-AA opponent William & Mary by a mere 13 points to start last season, and then repeated their uninspiring performance in week two against Middle Tennessee State, some Terrapin players learned that a win is not always a win.
“I think everybody here feels like last year, not going out and beating William & Mary big time, [and not] beating Middle Tennessee big time, we didn’t go into West Virginia with a lot of confidence,” sophomore wide receiver Darrius Heyward-Bey said.
This year, the Terps find themselves in the same situation as 2006, with two games against small-conference teams before a much-anticipated Thursday night matchup against West Virginia.
“We go beat Villanova 60-0, have a big game, two big games, that West Virginia game will be a lot easier for us,” Heyward-Bey said.
60-0 may be a little excessive, but I love the attitude, Darrius.
Sure, if the Terps and Wildcats squared off on the hardwood in March, it would be a great battle. But on the gridiron, the Terps score should resemble what it would in that basketball game, while Villanova’s score should resemble, well, that of a Division I-AA football team playing on the road against an ACC bowl team.
“I feel pretty confident that we’ll beat the first two teams going into West Virginia,” senior safety J.J. Justice said. “But I think that we need to blow them out in order to get our confidence up, in order to get our swagger back. If we come out and we beat these teams by 10, 14 points, I think we’ll still be ready for West Virginia, but it won’t be the same feeling. We need to go and totally crush these teams and get our confidence up.”
Justice is right. There has to be a different ambiance in the locker room after you thump a team, compared to when you aren’t playing your best football and doing just enough to get by.
I want to see Josh Portis playing in the second half, and not because Jordan Steffy is ineffective, but because the Terps are already leading by the 30 points that oddsmakers predict them to win by. Heck, I even want to see Chris Turner in the game after the score gets too wide to play even the second-stringers.
But even though it would please the casual fans to be able to leave the game early enough Saturday night that they can hit happy hour at Bentley’s without wondering who won, not all of the Terps are worried about how much they beat Villanova by.
“I’ll win by anything,” linebacker Dave Philistin said. “If I beat you in a video game by one point, I beat you by one point … Me as a person, I’ll beat you by a half a point. I won. That’s how I feel.”
In virtual world, this game should look like Philistin and the Terps are playing on the “Walk-On” level, not on “All-Madden,” like it seemed last year squaring off against a lesser William & Mary team.
And speaking of John Madden, beat the Wildcats by so much that his former co-worker and Villanova alum Howie Long has to call in sick to FOX NFL Sunday next week because he’s too embarrassed by the drubbing his alma mater takes.
Because if you don’t, it will be a long week at practice, having coach Ralph Friedgen point out all the miscues and needs for improvement. Wouldn’t you love to have a blowout and save yourself those efforts, Fridge?
“Bottom line is I’m not interested in stats; the only stat I care about is winning the game,” Friedgen said. “Winning the game is the most important thing.”
Well, I guess it’s hard to convert a head coach from that old philosophy. After all, an upset is indeed possible, and to quote another of my favorite clichés, “That’s why they play the games.”
