Before the opening kickoff against Michigan State, the Maryland football team, trying to rebound from the first two losses of coach DJ Durkin’s tenure, bunched on the sideline and jumped.
The Terps screamed, too. And they waved towels. Some sprayed water from their bottles into the air. They were in strength and conditioning coach Rick Court’s “juice box.”
Court implemented the juice box as a way to engage the Terps who weren’t in the game and keep the sideline spirit high after the squad lost to Minnesota.
It’s that energy, which the players credited for helping the team earn an 11-point victory over one of last year’s College Football Playoff participants, that Maryland wants to bring to Indiana on Saturday afternoon, when a win would clinch bowl eligibility.
“These guys are the most intense, juiced up dudes I’ve ever met in my entire life,” left guard Mike Minter said of the new coaching staff. “Coach Durkin and everybody tried to focus on us having a lot more fun and just controlling the controllables, and I think the juice box might have been something that he just made it up on the fly and had them out there cheering and stuff.
“I don’t know. It got me juiced up. I was ready to go.”
A day after Minter revealed the Terps’ latest energy ploy, defensive lineman Kingsley Opara clarified the juice box wasn’t just relegated to the sideline.
As one of the Terps’ most avid dancers at practice — a distinction he said he shares with cornerback Alvin Hill, offensive lineman JaJuan Dulaney and twin defensive backs Elijah and Elisha Daniels — teammates know Opara for his light-heartedness.
So when he was in the locker room before facing the Spartans and some of the Terps started jumping and yelling for no apparent reason — Opara didn’t yet know about the juice box — he didn’t think twice before joining.
“Everyone was just going nuts before the game,” Opara said. “It really helped us just stay hype the whole game. I loved it. I just love this staff, their energy. You can talk to anybody walking down the street about coach Durkin and Court and what they’re doing at Maryland, and it makes everyone want to put on pads and go play for them.”
But one thought the Terps have tempered excitement about this week is their chance to clinch a sixth win, sealing a bowl berth, by beating Indiana.
Before last year’s 3-9 slide, which prompted former coach Randy Edsall’s midseason firing, the Terps played in bowl games in 2013 and 2014. A win this weekend, though, would propel the team to the milestone earlier than those two campaigns.
Still, the Terps won’t speculate.
“It’s not like we’re setting our goals for six wins,” Minter said, “and then we’re bowl eligible, like, ‘Yay, that was our season goals.'”
After all, the Terps have at least four games to prepare for after facing the Hoosiers and a few more juice box sessions to hold.
“Be the best team we can be week to week,” Durkin said. “When you take care of things that way, at the end of the season, you find yourself where you want to be.”
