UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The Maryland football teams ended the first half Saturday afternoon on a sour note after Penn State running back Saquon Barkley rattled off a 45-yard score with 15 seconds left, but coach DJ Durkin felt his team regrouped during the break.
The Terps opened the second half with possession, and Nittany Lions kicker Joey Julius’ kickoff sailed out of bounds, which would have positioned the Terps on the 35-yard line. But as the play finished and Julius jogged down the field, linebacker Isaiah Davis lowered his shoulder and knocked Julius to the ground, drawing a personal foul penalty and an ejection.
After Penn State re-kicked, the Terps started the drive on their own 25-yard line and went 3-and-out, one of the sequences Durkin called “costly” and “dumb” after the 38-14 loss at Beaver Stadium.
“You talk about some momentum errors,” Durkin said. “We had good field position, and, you know, ready to go, and that just swings [it.]”
After the play, Durkin went out on the field to discipline Davis, placing his hand on the redshirt freshman’s chest as he spoke. When the official announced Davis’ ejection, Durkin talked to him again as he walked from the sideline.
The first year coach’s message: “If he wasn’t thrown out of the game, he was removed from the game by me. He wouldn’t have played another snap in that game in any phase.”
“That is not our program. We will not, we will not do that,” Durkin said. “That message had been made clear and made clearer now. That is not us. I don’t believe in that. That is a bad play.”
After the Terps punted on the possession, the defense allowed Penn State to move inside its 20-yard line. But one play after Barkley hurled him for a gain, cornerback Will Likely forced and recovered the sophomore’s fumble.
Maryland benefited from running back Lorenzo Harrison’s 44-yard jaunt down the right sideline on the next drive but stalled on a 4th-and-2 at the Nittany Lions’ 22-yard line.
Durkin said he had confidence in kicker Adam Greene’s chances to make the field goal, but given the distance and the harsh and damp conditions, the Terps kept its offense on the field. With the Penn State homecoming crowd of more than 100,000 people roaring, the Terps, down 24-14, lined up with three players in the backfield.
Quarterback Tyrrell Pigrome, in relief of Hills, who left the game with a second-quarter shoulder injury, faked an inside handoff before keeping the ball himself through the left side of the line. But the Terps sideline called for a timeout at the snap of the ball, and referees whistled the play dead.
After the break, running back Jake Funk took a jet sweep to the right edge but lost five yards on the play.
“There’s so many other mistakes,” Durkin said. “If you can’t gain two yards, you don’t deserve to win a game.”
It wasn’t the first time the Terp failed to capitalize on a Nittany Lions miscue.
With about four minutes left in the second quarter, Harrison pushed through two blockers on the right side of Penn State’s formation to slam down a punt. The Terps recovered it on the Nittany Lions’ 15-yard line with a chance to cut into their two-score deficit.
On the next play, however, the backfield didn’t make the correct read, and Penn State linebacker Koa Farmer streaked untouched toward Hills. He nailed the redshirt senior with a blindside sack, causing Hills to fumble.
“There were a lot of opportunities we had,” running back Ty Johnson said. “We just didn’t take them.”
Durkin took off his headset after watching his team commit the turnover, frustrated the Terps squandered another opportunity to mount a comeback in its first loss of the season.
“We just had to be locked in every play,” linebacker Jermaine Carter said. “We just didn’t do a great job of that today, and we got to get better.”
