Terrapin offensive coordinator James Franklin knows it’s the latest trend in college football for the winner of the pregame coin flip to defer choice of possession to the second half, allowing the opposing team to start the game with the ball.
But when Terp captains Jeremy Navarre, Scott Burley and Moise Fokou accidentally chose to receive to begin Saturday’s ACC home opener against No. 21 Wake Forest, Franklin didn’t mind.
“[Coach Ralph Friedgen] wasn’t happy about it,” Franklin said. “To me, I was like, ‘Hell yeah. Let’s get the ball.'”
The Terp offense, which struggled to move the ball at all in a shutout loss to Virginia in its previous game, took advantage of its chance to set the tone. Quarterback Chris Turner came out sharp, and on the ninth play of the game, running back Da’Rel Scott tossed a 9-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Darrius Heyward-Bey on a trick play.
Suddenly, the disappointment of the Virginia loss was gone. Decked out in black jerseys, the Terps started to regain their swagger. Their recent blueprint for taking down ranked opponents at home was ready to go.
And they executed it to perfection.
By the time the surge of momentum stopped, the Terps had a 26-0 win, revenge for two tough losses to Wake Forest in the past two years, a fifth-straight win against a ranked opponent and a share of the ACC Atlantic Division lead.
“I think we finally put a whole game together,” Friedgen said. “I think this is by far the best we’ve played all year.”
The Terp offense rolled up 470 yards of total offense behind a career-best passing performance from Turner. Heyward-Bey, who had not caught a pass in two games, exploded back into the offense with a career-high 11 receptions for 101 yards. Kicker Obi Egekeze came through with four field goals, running his streak to nine consecutive makes.
The defense was even better, shutting out a ranked opponent for the first time since 1955. The Terps harassed Demon Deacon quarterback Riley Skinner all game long, sacking him four times as he completed less than half of his pass attempts.
Even a pair of lost fumbles by Scott inside the Terp 30-yard line didn’t amount to points. The Terp defense forced two three-and-outs, and Wake Forest kicker Shane Popham, playing in place of injured former All-ACC kicker Sam Swank, missed two field goals.
“The defense gelled [Saturday],” safety Terrell Skinner said. “I think we matured together as a group. We communicated out there, and we made the plays that came to us. That was big-time defense.”
Turner, who established career-highs in attempts (41) and completions (28) while throwing for 321 yards, helped open up the running lanes for Scott and freshman Davin Meggett late in the game by attacking Wake Forest with a controlled passing game.
He looked for Heyward-Bey early and often, mostly on shorter routes. The junior wide receiver, who had the most catches in a single game by a Terp since Geroy Simon in 1995, had eight receptions by the middle of the second quarter, including a nifty juggling catch that went for a 41-yard gain. Despite being matched against All-ACC cornerback Alphonso Smith, Heyward-Bey led the way for what he described as a “fun” offensive performance.
“They played soft coverage a lot of the day,” Turner said. “They probably didn’t want to get burnt deep, and we just kind of took what they gave us.”
Conversely, Riley Skinner, who already had two career wins against the Terps coming in, never got the Demon Deacon offense on track after the team punted on fourth-and-inches in Terp territory on its first possession. The Wake Forest junior was victimized by several dropped passes and was consistently flushed from the pocket by a solid push from the Terps’ front four. He closed one of the worst games of his Demon Deacon career on the sidelines, replaced by backup Brett Hodges on his team’s final two drives.
“I could see it in his eyes,” Terrell Skinner said. “[Riley Skinner] was rattled. It was like, ‘They know where we’re going.’ After we got at him a couple of times, I knew we had him.”
Friedgen said the inspired effort came as close to nullifying the embarrassing performance at Virginia as is possible.
After his wildly inconsistent team became the first in the country to beat three ranked opponents this season, Friedgen repeatedly joked about its penchant for rising to the occasion.
But they’ve put themselves in position to make a run at a conference championship, one game into the “six-game playoff” that Friedgen dubbed the second half of their season.
“It doesn’t feel good to know we lost some of those games we should’ve won, but it’s in the past now,” Turner said. “We’ve got to move on, and our fate is in our own hands at this point.”
One order of business as the Terp season progresses is making sure there are no more pregame communication breakdowns. It was the second time this season Friedgen’s captains have gone against his coin-flip wishes – the other was Sept. 27 at then-No. 20 Clemson.
“I think we’ll try and break that,” Friedgen said. “I made note that next time I am going to write it down and hand it to them.”
Or maybe it’s just another element of the Terps’ big-game blueprint.
TERP NOTE: Cornerback Kevin Barnes injured his shoulder in the second quarter, knocking him out of the game. X-rays were negative on the senior’s shoulder, and he will have an MRI today.
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