The Terrapins football team knows what Old Dominion is going to do when they take the field at Byrd Stadium on Saturday.
The Monarchs are going to spread the field with four wide receivers and one running back. They’re going to rely heavily on quarterback Taylor Heinicke to make plays with both his arm and his legs. And the Monarchs are going to do it at breakneck speed.
But the Terps aren’t worried. Their defense faces an up-tempo scheme every day in practice. The offense has the potential to put up points if the Terps and Monarchs end up in a shootout.
“All’s you got to do is you just got to put on the film and watch them play,” coach Randy Edsall said Tuesday. “Our guys will have respect for them as soon — as they’ve watched them already, I’m sure — on tape. So we have tremendous respect for them.”
Heinicke burst onto the national stage last September when he threw for a Division I-record 730 yards in a 64-61 comeback win over New Hampshire. He would go on to win the Walter Payton Award as the best player in the Football Championship Subdivision. He presents problems for a Terps defense that performed well against Florida International in the season opener.
But while his arm grabs the headlines, Heinicke can do just as much with his legs. In the Monarchs’ 52-38 loss to East Carolina Saturday in their season opener, Heinicke rushed for 52 yards. Defensive coordinator Brian Stewart compared him to Michael Vick or Donovan McNabb in that the threat of the run is always going to be there.
“I think the main concern is that he can create things when you’ve covered the receivers,” Stewart said. “If you cover the receiver, that may be the worst thing you can do because then he has the chance to outrun the rush. He seems to be extremely fast. I don’t have a time on him, but he seems to be pretty quick and fast. He gets on the edges, ducks in, gets out and can throw both left and right. Just him improvising, that’s my biggest concern.”
While pressure from edge rushers like outside linebackers Marcus Whitfield and Yannik Cudjoe-Virgil will be crucial, Whitfield offered another strategy for the rushers with Heinicke’s quick release out of the shotgun. If the Terps can’t reach Heinicke, they need to throw their hands up and try to bat his passes down at the line of scrimmage.
“We’re going to want to get them off schedule from the first play,” Whitfield said. “Because they’re going to try and spread us out and try to hit the quick passes. As long as we get the quick passes down, at least knock them down here and there, getting them off schedule is a big thing for us.”
With the Terps’ front seven trying to get pressure on Heinicke, the relationship between the linebackers and secondary becomes even more crucial. More receivers will be on the field with more speedy threats to worry about, so the assignments take on even more value.
Everyone saw a miscommunication in FIU’s defense Saturday when wide receiver Stefon Diggs was left wide open for a touchdown. The Terps don’t want that to happen to them.
“We’ve been doing a little bit of everything,” inside linebacker Cole Farrand said. “Everybody knows what we do: We like to bring the pressure. I definitely love that about the defense, it’s a lot of fun and it keeps the offense on their toes. I think it’s going to be good for our game plan this week and I think our DBs are going to do very well.”
The Terps will go from seeing FIU’s West Coast offense one week to Old Dominion’s high-powered spread the next week. Farrand said it was like starting from “square one” with a new defensive scheme, but he’s not worried about the Terps’ ability to adapt to whatever opposing offenses throw at them.
He knows he could be in for a different type of day, too. His responsibilities change with the spread offense from run stuffer to more of a role in the passing game. It’s an adjustment, but it’s one he knows he — and the rest of the team — has to make against Heinicke and the Monarchs.
“When I line up and see that, I’m just like, ‘Oh great, now I got to cover a running back,’” Farrand joked. “But you do what you got to do. You just got to get your job done.”