The Terps rush the field and waves their flags before Maryland’s 20-19 victory against Penn State on Nov. 1, 2014.
The camera panned across Terrapins football captains Stefon Diggs, Sean Davis and P.J. Gallo as the trio lined up at midfield Saturday for the pregame coin toss against Penn State.
Whether coach Randy Edsall replaced the Gatorade at last week’s practices with Kool-Aid infused with unadulterated IDGAF, we’ll probably never know.
But when the three Terps looked on silently, arms at their sides as the Nittany Lions captains extended theirs for a handshake, one thing was clear: The jabs the programs had traded since the offseason had hit home for at least one team — certainly harder than Diggs’ stiff-arm to an official’s face in the sideline-clearing scuffle that preceded the toss.
I’m not proud, but I’ll admit it: The whole spectacle looked pretty badass on the Route 1 Applebee’s big-screen TV. But as long as we’re talking lessons in badassery and casual dining, here’s two:
1. Teams that give up 104 combined points in two games don’t get to make statements like that.
2. The 25-cent boneless wing special doesn’t extend through Saturdays. Oh, and Applebee’s doesn’t accept vertical licenses.
Sure, brashness will always have its place in sports, especially football — that sanctified and sanctimonious bastion of unbridled masculinity. And on the surface, the captains definitely looked — forgive me — brash as f—.
It was a bit of a baffling move from Diggs, whose Twitter diatribes against shade, sneak dissing and the like are well-documented. And it was just plain laughable from Gallo, who entered the matchup with two starts under his belt and just one reception.
Thankfully, the three captains backed up the snub with their play. Gallo scored off a 2-yard pass from quarterback C.J. Brown on the Terps’ third drive. Davis ended the afternoon with a game-high 10 tackles, including one for loss, and three pass breakups.
Diggs, who was lucky to hit the field at all after doming an official, finished with six receptions for 53 yards and added another 90 on returns.
All the same, those stat lines meant little when the Terps faced a two-point deficit with 2:16 on the clock. And it wasn’t Diggs, Davis or Gallo who secured the 20-19 Terps victory.
Running back Wes Brown accounted for all 17 yards on that drive, and kicker Brad Craddock trotted onto the field for his 14th straight successful field goal, a 43-yarder that passed just inside the left upright to keep the junior perfect on the season.
We don’t have to live in a world where Penn State won, and that’s a blessing for Edsall’s team. Thanks to Craddock’s strike and the ensuing win, the handshake slight skews more toward a goof — just boys being boys — than an unforgivable gaffe.
The longstanding debate over the sacredness of the handshake is a tired one; it doesn’t really matter that the Terps chose to ignore the Penn State captains. But the Terps — who are barely surpassing expectations in a new conference — decided to make their statement against a team that stumbled into the contest with three straight losses and ranks second-last in the Big Ten in total offense. That’s never a good look.
If the Nittany Lions had marched off the field and straight to their locker room instead of leaving the sideline to shake hands as the clock ticked toward zero, I wouldn’t have blamed them. Props to coach James Franklin and company for gutting it out.
As far as rivalry talk goes, the fired-up football on display Saturday (patented sloppy play aside) only reinforced that a Terps-Nittany Lions feud would boost both programs. The Terps and their fans are looking for someone to hate after fleeing the ACC, and a struggling Penn State is still searching for an identity with its third head coach in four seasons.
Simply put, the performances on the field at Beaver Stadium hold greater implications than anything that happened before kickoff or in postgame conferences.
So let’s chill the handshake debate and put a moratorium on the hashtag #shakegate. And as the Terps slog toward a date under the lights with No. 7 Michigan State on Nov. 15, let’s hope Edsall’s stocked up on a different brand of Kool-Aid.
