When the Terrapin football team’s defense takes the field Monday, it will face a Navy offense that wants the Terps to have no idea who has the ball.
So to prepare for their Labor Day season opener, the Terps took the ball out of the equation altogether.
To simulate the Midshipmen’s prolific triple-option attack, which relies on multiple fakes to open holes in an opponent’s defense, the Terps have had their scout team run plays at full speed but without a ball.
Eliminating perhaps the most fundamental element of a football game — the pigskin itself — has allowed the scout team to replicate Navy’s lightning-quick offense without worrying about fumbles or misfires. More importantly, coach Ralph Friedgen hopes it has helped defensive players avoid being tempted to break their assignments and chase the ball.
“Defensively, guys just want to run to the ball and not have to think and just react,” Friedgen said Tuesday at his weekly news conference. “This offense makes you take care of your responsibilities. You have to be very disciplined.”
In a well-run triple-option offense, the defense will not know who has the ball until the last possible second, often not until the offense has already gained two or three yards. The quarterback has the option of handing off to a fullback, taking the ball up the field himself or pitching it to one of two wingbacks behind him.
“Definitely, the first thing we’ve got to do is stop the fullback,” sophomore linebacker Ryan Donahue said. “He can get the ball and get three yards a pop, and they’re right on schedule. They don’t care; they’ll take three yards every time.”
But shutting down the fullback leaves Navy quarterback Ricky Dobbs up next.
The Midshipmen ranked second-to-last in passing yardage in Division I last season, throwing only an average of eight times per game. But Dobbs ran for 27 touchdowns, an NCAA record for a quarterback, and is widely considered a Heisman Trophy candidate this year.
And though it doesn’t happen often, Dobbs still has a solid throwing arm whenever he does decide to throw a forward pass.
“We want him to pitch the ball,” Donahue said. “We want the ball out of his hands, and we want to smack him.”
That still leaves Navy’s wingbacks, including Aaron Santiago and Gee Gee Greene, with the potential to break through the defense and wreak havoc.
They did last year. The Midshipmen ranked No. 4 in the country in rushing yards per game with 280.5 and went 10-4 in 2009, including a win over Missouri in the Texas Bowl.
“They can do so many things with it,” senior linebacker Alex Wujciak said. “It’s really hard for people to stay on their keys, and if one person messes up, they can take full advantage of it and get a touchdown.”
“It’s very, very difficult to defend,” Friedgen said. “The more we look at it, the more we have to play with ‘what-ifs’ — if they do this, if they do that. They’re very aggressive.”
Because of all the options Navy has available, staying focused will be key to defending the multi-pronged attack. Players are training to stay homed in on their assignment, regardless of what might be happening elsewhere on the field.
The allure of breaking away can be overwhelming, players said, especially to the Terps, who prefer to play to defensive coordinator Don Brown’s aggressive, blitzing scheme. But they have trained against the option attack since preseason camp and now solely face the Midshipmen’s style of play in practice.
“You have to do that in order for everyone to go to their exact assignment instead of just going to the ball all the time,” safety Antwine Perez said. “You get used to doing your job and your job only.”
And in case of any slip-ups, the Terps think their speed and athleticism, from their defensive line all the way to their safeties, will contain any explosive outbursts from the Midshipmen — even if they might not see it themselves.
“We’re going to make mistakes throughout the game,” Wujciak said. “But if we can get our whole defense running to the ball, we can limit their yards after our mistakes.”
kyanchulis@umdbk.com
