Homecoming Football Preview

As the final whistle blew on the Terrapins football team’s 37-0 win over West Virginia on Sept. 21, Marcus Whitfield looked around Baltimore’s M&T Bank Stadium for a place to go.

After home wins at Byrd Stadium, the Terps usually run to the student section, jumping over padding and into the embrace of the first row of students. Then they gather in that corner to sing the school victory song.

But the layout at M&T Bank Stadium on this rainy afternoon was different: The student section was in a corner, away from field level.

So Whitfield located his family — including his mother, father and young son — in the first row on the far sideline, sprinted and climbed onto the railing in front of his red-poncho-wearing family members.

“They’ve been there since day one,” Whitfield said a week later. “I just went over there [to] stand there and celebrate with them.”

In a breakout redshirt senior season, the outside linebacker has emerged as a force on the field. He has 6.5 sacks, which ranks fourth in the ACC and ties for eighth nationally. As injuries have depleted the Terps defense over the past few weeks, Whitfield’s importance has grown, especially with Clemson’s high-powered offense visiting Byrd Stadium Saturday for the Terps’ homecoming game.

But while the Germantown native continues his impressive season, there’s much more going for him than his ability to overpower opposing offensive linemen and pressure quarterbacks.

“The beauty of what I do is to be able to see young people when they first come here and see how innocent or how shy they might be or just to see the ability in them, and then you watch them grow over two to three years, four years and to see how they develop,” coach Randy Edsall said. “Marcus is really one of those kids.”

Whitfield sat in Young Dining Hall at Gossett Football Team House on Sept. 3, the first day of his final semester at this university, surrounded by a throng of reporters, recorders scattered on the table in front of him and video cameras focused on him from all angles.

Three days earlier, he had dominated Florida International in the Terps’ season opener, making five tackles and sacking the quarterback 1.5 times in the Terps’ 43-10 win. Edsall presented him with the defensive game ball for his performance.

Whitfield inadvertently thrust Edsall and the Terps into the national spotlight when he said he couldn’t receive the actual game ball because of NCAA rules. The comments led to confusion over the governing body’s bylaws and ESPN commentator Keith Olbermann calling Edsall “the worst person in sports.”

But Whitfield wasn’t too concerned with whether he would get the game ball — the American studies major will receive it when he graduates in December — or any of the accolades he received that week.

That was Whitfield’s final first day of school, and meanwhile, his 4-year-old son Jeremiah was at his first day of school in a Head Start program half an hour away in Gaithersburg.

While Whitfield has gone through his five years with the Terps trying to develop as a football player and find his way onto the field to chase down quarterbacks, he’s also juggled the task of fatherhood.

“I think everything’s important to him,” defensive coordinator Brian Stewart said in early September. “And when I say everything, being a good teammate, being a good father, being a good person, being a good football player, it’s important to him. I think when I first got here, I think he wanted to be a good person, but everything and how he went about his business wasn’t as important as it is now.”

As a fifth-year senior and father, Whitfield recognizes his position of seniority on the team and the experience he brings to a defense brimming with youthful talent. He’s soft-spoken, so he chooses to lead by example, juggling parts of life that go well beyond the field but still producing and playing at a high level on Saturdays.

“Everybody on defense, everyone comes to knock somebody’s face off when they come to college, if you play defense especially,” Whitfield said. “Everybody looks at me as being a leader; they all know I’m a father, that I have other things to worry about. Everybody basically looks at how the oldest person on the team is going to act.”

It’s been like that since Whitfield’s days at Northwest High School in Germantown, where he was a dangerous receiving option at tight end in addition to a devastating pass rusher. He was a Jaguars team captain, but he wasn’t in the middle of huddles making pregame speeches or standing over opposing quarterbacks, taunting them after a sack.

After a big play, Whitfield would simply walk back to the huddle.

“He was a guy who did his job,” former Northwest coach Andrew Fields said. “Kids followed him for that reason, and certainly the talent and exposure helped in that regard. He wasn’t an outwardly spoken or iron fist-type leader. He was more of a guy that just did his job, didn’t correct others by any stretch of the imagination, but kids followed him because he did his job and did it well.”

Whitfield had been a solid contributor to the Jaguars, but he hadn’t yet made the next step to major college prospect. He had to compete for playing time and didn’t always see the field. And when he wasn’t on the field, it seemed as if the shy Whitfield was simply going through the motions of being a football player, Fields said.

Fields also said the motivation for Whitfield was there, he just didn’t show it outwardly, making it hard for coaches to read what he was thinking and how he felt. They perceived Whitfield as a “lethargic” player, even though he was still making an impact on the field.

“I wouldn’t say it contributes. I would say it definitely translates,” Fields said. “I think it’s kind of the same thing. He’s not an overaggressive kid if he’s just feeling his way through things football-wise. But once he sees that daylight — or in his social life, when he gets to know people — he changes gears.”

In spring 2008, though, Fields noticed something different about Whitfield. Things clicked, and Whitfield started performing at the level Fields expected when he first saw Whitfield’s physical tools. In his senior season at Northwest, Whitfield recorded 39 tackles, nine tackles for loss and six quarterback hurries. Rivals rated him the 89th-best outside linebacker in the country.

Fields started contacting more significant football programs about his talented player, and Whitfield soon chose former coach Ralph Friedgen and the Terps over a group of schools such as West Virginia.

“To me, it was just a matter of whether he would get over that hump of what I define as kind of a passive, go-through-the-motions appearance,” Fields said. “I knew if he got through that, he’s an athletically explosive kid.”

While it took Whitfield some time to make a complete impact on the field at Northwest, the same was true of the early part of his Terps career. He redshirted during his freshman year in 2009 before suffering a season-ending knee injury on his lone play in the Terps’ second game of the 2010 season.

Whitfield played in eight games in 2011, starting the final five of the season at defensive end. He flashed his potential, tying for fourth on the team with 2.5 sacks and went on to play in all 12 games last year.

This year, though, things have been different. Whitfield beat out Division II transfer Yannik Cudjoe-Virgil for the starting outside linebacker job in training camp and sacked opposing quarterbacks 5.5 times in the Terps’ first three games.

“When I first got here, he was kind of the little shy guy, didn’t talk a whole lot,” Edsall said. “But now you just see this kid that is emerging into a young man and just has developed a lot more confidence in himself, and he handles himself with a lot more confidence.”

Early in the season, Whitfield and Cudjoe-Virgil formed a fearsome pass-rushing duo, ranking first and second nationally in sacks after three games. Though Whitfield won the position battle, Cudjoe-Virgil still found plenty of playing time.

The two players would joke about meeting each other in the backfield and always seemed to be in the right places during the Terps’ 4-0 start. In the team’s 32-21 win at Connecticut on Sept. 14, Whitfield and Cudjoe-Virgil forced an intentional grounding penalty in the end zone for a safety.

“Marcus and I, we’ve been pretty good friends since I got here,” Cudjoe-Virgil said in September. “We worked with each other over the summer and stuff. We’re always laughing with each other. I think we’re good friends. He teaches me pass-rush techniques and stuff like that. … He’s one of the leaders on our defense. We always try to find someone to talk in practice, and that’s been him.”

But Cudjoe-Virgil suffered a season-ending pectoralis injury two weeks ago. Fellow outside linebackers Matt Robinson and Alex Twine have also missed time with shoulder ailments. Inside linebacker L.A. Goree missed Saturday’s loss at Wake Forest. Freshmen, such as Cavon Walker and Yannick Ngakoue, will play an even bigger role down the stretch as the Terps try to make their first bowl game since 2010.

So not only does Whitfield’s performance become more valuable to the Terps, but also to a young front seven. It’s the role Edsall, Stewart and the rest of the coaching staff gave Whitfield before the season started.

“The coaches expect something from me,” Whitfield said. “They know that you can play, that’s why they put you in that position as a starter. There’s also the person behind you that’s pushing you so you can continue to play the way you have been playing.”

In addition to the responsibilities of rushing the quarterback and helping orchestrate a defense that’s struggled recently, Whitfield still works to find time for Jeremiah, who turned 4 on Sept. 27 during the Terps’ bye week.

Jeremiah, still too small to wear a Terps jersey of his own, attends most of Whitfield’s games and spends the night with Whitfield and his roommates — inside linebacker Cole Farrand, offensive lineman Stephen Grommer and fullback Tyler Cierski — after games.

“He loves everybody on my team,” Whitfield said. “Even though some of them might scare him, they all love him.”

Whitfield isn’t sure if Jeremiah has football in his future yet, either. He’ll line up with his hand on the ground and run at people like his father does, but Whitfield said he also enjoys running with the ball. He’ll get the attention of Whitfield or other players before he runs and jumps onto an oversized beanbag chair in Whitfield’s room or gets someone to toss him onto it.

“Everybody on the team wants to be his uncle, godfather,” Whitfield said. “So it feels [like] basically a big family. One hundred four godfathers and uncles.”

As he’s gone through his four-plus years of college, Whitfield’s had an additional responsibility most of his teammates don’t. But he’s been able to balance school, football and fatherhood and have success in each.

“It gets to a point and time, yeah I’m a father,” Whitfield said. “I guess at that point you got to make a name for yourself. You basically have another mouth to feed. It’s just been a long ride for me basically in college.”

During the Terps’ bye week at the end of September, Whitfield was shopping at a Giant when he noticed a small boy watching his every move. It was nothing new for Whitfield, who cuts an imposing figure at 6-foot-3, 250 pounds. He knows he stands out off the football field.

Soon, the boy’s father approached Whitfield. The 4-year-old wanted to meet a football player. He asked Whitfield what position he played and what it was like to play for the Terps.

So Whitfield took a break from his shopping and started talking to the boy. He told him to do well in school and keep practicing so he might get the chance to play in college and beyond.

“People notice who you are just because we wear stuff with ‘Maryland,’ and then they ask you questions about what position, give us credit for our doing well, stuff like that,” Whitfield said. “It definitely felt good to have one of the younger people come to me and ask me questions.”

Edsall’s been quick to praise Whitfield this season, both for his play on the field and his development off of it. Gone is the seemingly passive teenager from Fields’ days at Northwest. Now there is a key player with high aspirations juggling school, fatherhood and football.

“These are things that we expected out of Marcus,” Edsall said.

Whitfield has impressed his current coach by elevating himself to a new level. So now, Whitfield’s former coach is no longer surprised by anything he does.

“Now, it’s not a ‘wow,’” Fields said. “Now, it’s, ‘I told you all.’”