As Ozzy Osbourne’s “Crazy Train” blared over the Maryland Stadium speakers at the start of Saturday night’s game against Michigan State, some of the Maryland football players, bouncing in unison on the sideline, waved white towels.
The towels resurfaced when the Terps struck first, an eight-yard juke from running back Lorenzo Harrison on their second possession. Moments later, when running back Kenneth Goins Jr. lunged in for a two-point conversion and referees upheld the call, the towel-waving ensued.
With his team on a two-game losing streak, including last week’s blowout home loss to Minnesota, coach DJ Durkin called for the Terps to raise their energy in Saturday night’s primetime clash. The towels were a start.
Each time the Terps made a positive play in their 28-17 win against the Spartans, the white towels, which stood out among the team’s all-black uniforms and the announced 41,235 fans’ black garb, circled.
“That was a fun night for our guys,” Durkin said, his head nodding during the opening statement of his postgame press conference. “I told our guys to have fun. Let’s enjoy it. Let’s go out there and take our swings.”
When Durkin met with his team in the hotel before the Terps took busses to Maryland Stadium, the first-year leader anticipated the players could rebound from their previous shortcomings.
Against Minnesota and Penn State, the Terps didn’t eclipse 14 points. The defense, meanwhile, allowed the Nittany Lions and Golden Gophers to combine for 69 points. Saturday afternoon, the focus in their eyes proved to Durkin the struggles wouldn’t continue.
“I went into the team meeting, and it was like, ‘OK, I know we’re ready,'” Durkin said. “They had that look about them all night.”
“He likes to say you’ve got a way about you when you walk,” cornerback Alvin Hill added. “It’s like a calm confidence, and you know you’re going to perform because you prepared.”
One of the causes for celebration was the return of quarterback Perry Hills, who missed last week’s game with a right shoulder injury.
Hills completed 21 of his 27 passes for 200 yards and two touchdowns, one of which was a 36-yard heave to wide receiver D.J. Moore with about six minutes left in the second frame. The sophomore, who finished with four catches for 61 yards, split down the middle of the field to exploit a lapse in the Spartans’ secondary as he hauled in the ball, eliciting a flurry of waving towels from the bench as the offense huddled in the end zone.
“Everyone was pretty dialed in,” Hill said. “Today, we just wanted to go out there, and Coach harped to just have fun.”
Michigan State quelled the celebration when running back Gerald Holmes’ took a one-yard plunge into the opposite end zone with 38 seconds in the half to tie the game at 14, marking the third consecutive week Maryland’s defense allowed an opponent to score a touchdown in the final minute of the first half.
While Durkin admitted the previous two lapses deflated the team’s momentum, he couldn’t tell a difference in the bowels of Gossett Team House on Saturday night.
“You would have thought we were up by 30 at halftime,” Durkin said. “Everyone was into it.”
That mindset didn’t waver in the second half.
Michigan State drove into Maryland’s red zone on its first possession, but cornerback JC Jackson stuck Spartans wide receiver Monty Jackson and knocked the ball loose, sparking a flurry of circling towels when defensive lineman Chandler Burkett secured the ball.
Though Michigan State grabbed a 17-14 lead on a third-quarter field goal, Maryland turned to its backfield for Goins’ touchdown. Then, Hills found wide receiver Levern Jacobs for a nine-yard score. The signal caller jogged off the field to his teammates waving towels, basking in the 11-point lead over one of last year’s College Football Playoff participants.
“We’re building,” Durkin said. “We’re building for the long-term, for sure.”
