Running back Wes Brown was a part in the Maryland football team’s backfield rotation throughout fall camp and the first three weeks of the season, but he never took the field on game day. He was finishing an indefinite suspension the former coaching staff instituted last November.
But in the wake of another running back suspension — Lorenzo Harrison is out indefinitely for his role in the campus BB gun incident last week — Brown has an opportunity to play an increased role.
When the Terps play in Lincoln, Nebraska, on Saturday afternoon, their second game without Harrison’s shifty, electric burst in the backfield, the Terps again face offensive uncertainty on the ground and at quarterback. They hope Brown can help replace the production.
“He’s certainly prepared and practicing well and always been ready for us,” coach DJ Durkin said. “He’s obviously an older, experienced guy, so he’s been through it. He’s mentally in the right place and physically in the right place.”
The redshirt senior has played in five games this season, netting 13 yards on 22 carries. He’s also made four catches for 88 yards.
A season after he shared time with former running back Brandon Ross and totaled 317 rushing yards and three touchdowns, Brown hasn’t been a top option of the Terps’ ground plans in offensive coordinator Walt Bell’s up-tempo scheme.
The team started the year with six players on the depth chart before running back Trey Edmunds fractured his right foot early in conference play. Durkin said Monday he doesn’t anticipate Edmunds will return before the end of the season.
Harrison, meanwhile, won’t be with the team in Lincoln, leaving Brown and running backs Ty Johnson, Kenneth Goins Jr. and Jake Funk to shoulder the load against a Cornhuskers defense that limits opponents to 141.7 yards a game, the 38th-best mark in the nation.
Johnson’s speed and elusiveness has helped him become the Terps’ leading rusher, but Bell said Wednesday the team needs a diverse attack late in the year.
“With as violent as that position is, it’s going to take more than one guy,” Bell said. “That’s why we’ve always prepared five and hoped that by the end of Week 11, you’ll have one or two left. That’s the nature of the position. We’ve got a lot of depth at that position, some by development and some by luck. Now we’re down to two or three, and that’s part of the position.”
In their first five games, the Terps surpassed what the Cornerhuskers usually allow on the ground. But they haven’t eclipsed 100 yards rushing the past two contests. That’s why Durkin admitted this week the Terps want to return to the fundamentals they preached in the beginning of the season while trying to pose a threat to their third consecutive top-20 opponent.
A productive running game could also help ease the uncertainty at quarterback. Durkin has labeled Hills “day-to-day” as he recovered from a left shoulder injury he suffered on the second drive against Ohio State. This week, the redshirt senior signal-caller has received treatment on both of his shoulders, as he’s dealt with a nagging right shoulder injury since nonconference play.
But with the rotation under center and Harrison’s absence, the Terps maintain they won’t change their offensive approach. Instead, they hope players, such as Brown, can find success in increased time.
“It just provides opportunity for everybody else back there,” Goins said. “We all were playing a lot in the beginning of the season, so everybody in the backfield is pretty talented, so whoever gets in the game is going to make some type of impact.”
