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‘Tis the season for awards campaign hashtags; more Designated Reads

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• Collin Klein and Kenjon Barner would like a word. We can think of a few folks who might take issue with USC’s assertion that Marqise Lee is the best player in college football, but he certainly has a compelling case (and his own hashtag). And will fruitless Heisman arguments stop us from posting kickass highlight reels? They most certainly will not.

We see what you’re saying, but all we hear is “start looking for parking in New Orleans, like, tomorrow.” Brett “Sources” McMurphy was first to report yesterday that the Sugar Bowl has won the Champions Bowl bidding war and will host an annual SEC-Big 12 champions clash, when it’s not serving as a playoff semifinal site. The first game will take place on Jan. 1, 2015, and the agreement runs through January 2026. So, Arlington for the title game, then?

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  • Published On Nov 07, 2012
  • They’re still the Tide and Ducks; more Designated Reads

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    Oregon in the top five means we get to post pictures of the Ducks’ mascot all the time. We like it when Oregon is in the top five. (AP)

    • Brace yourselves for a largish shock. Alabama tops the AP Poll for the 10th consecutive week, with Oregon holding steady at No. 2. Your BCS top five, in descending order: ‘Bama, Kansas State, Oregon, Notre Dame and Georgia. The Toledo Rockets make what we call an overdue appearance in the BCS standings this week, along with UCLA and Northwestern. Dropping out: Boise State (breaking a 40-week streak), West Virginia, Arizona and Oklahoma State. Stewart Mandel updates SI’s bowl predictions and … is that hope for Louisiana Tech we’re seeing on the horizon?

    • Coach firin’ season! No updates to the carousel as of noon Monday, but ominous rumblings are sounding out of Colorado, and we are really enjoying imagining Rex Ryan at Kentucky.

    • Injury report story hour. What to make of Collin Klein’s Oklahoma State game injury? … leading Georgia receiver Marlon Brown is finished as a Bulldog after tearing his ACL against Ole Miss, although the program’s director of sports medicine indicated Sunday that “a full recovery is anticipated that will enable him to continue his career in the future” … perpetual South Florida quarterback B.J. Daniels is through with the Bulls after sustaining a broken ankle against UConn … Arizona’s Hank Hobson is out of the hospital …  and Maryland announced Monday the loss of starting MLB and leading tackler Demetrius Hartsfield to a torn ACL, which Patrick Stevens calculates makes five torn ACLs for the Terps this season and the fourth lost team captain in two years.

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  • Published On Nov 05, 2012
  • Saturday Superlatives: An (absentee) viewers’ guide

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    Kansas State’s Collin Klein is no stranger to reaching the end zone against Oklahoma State. (AP)

    Assorted Week 10 football contests that you get to watch and we, for the most part, do not. Enjoy?

    • Games we will miss the most while participating in a wedding ceremony taking place in a state that is very far away from any of these games: In descending order: Oregon-USC (7:00 p.m. ET), Alabama-LSU (8:00) and Oklahoma State-Kansas State (8:00). Let our plight serve as a dire warning: Friends don’t let friends go to art school and go out into the world thinking it’s socially acceptable to plan November weddings.

    • Team of the week that Maryland will either beat or embarrass or both with its 19th-string quarterback: Is it terribly foolish of us to like the Terps’ chances against Georgia Tech? We’ll find out at 12:30 in College Park. Maryland’s defense has been its strength this season, and Tech’s doesn’t seem particularly inclined to stop teams that do have quarterbacks, so …

    • Most Americanest football contest of Week 10: Air Force and Army run the next leg of the Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy race at noon.

    • Saddest event we still technically have to call a football contest: Auburn and New Mexico State, with a combined record of 2-14, meet on the Plains at 12:30.

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  • Published On Nov 02, 2012
  • Game trailers are a thing now; more Designated Reads

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    Duck hunts. Not to be outdone by the LSU-Alabama trailer that dropped earlier this week, Oregon has released its own hype video in honor of the Ducks’ upcoming trip to USC. Among its highlights: The Duck learning to play Oregon Trail and doing the team’s laundry under threat of dysentery from a school employee, the Duck searching for a watch he does not wear, a covert laundry detergent handoff from gold-medal decathalete and Oregon grad Ashton Eaton and the implication that the Duck possesses a commercial driver’s license, which wouldn’t actually surprise anyone. Our one quibble is spelled out neatly by YouTube commenter “ChocolateJesus2K:

    Wash uniforms? Oregon doesn’t wear the same thing twice.

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  • Published On Nov 01, 2012
  • Happy birthday, Nick Saban; more Designated Reads

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    Well, naturally. Along with John Candy, John Keats, Peter Jackson, Dan Rather, Pope Clement XIV and Willow Smith, Saban is an Oct. 31 baby. But we have to agree that saying “Nick Saban was born on Halloween” is a bit of a misnomer:

    Moving right along!

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  • Published On Oct 31, 2012
  • Designated Read: Sorry, everybody

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    • For the record, we were kidding. Saturday, in the waning minutes of the Texas-Kansas game:

    Sunday, in the Coaches’ Poll: The Longhorns move up two slots, from 24 to 22. We will choose our words more carefully when next taunting the spider-gods responsible for college football lists.

    Elsewhere in rankings news: Alabama, Kansas State, Notre Dame, Oregon and LSU make up the new BCS top five, with the Ducks dropping two slots and the Wildcats and Fighting Irish rising. That dream of Bill Snyder using a crystal football as a hard candy dish draws ever nearer. … Louisiana Tech appears at BCS No. 25, a program first. … Along with LaTech, Nebraska, Arizona and Oklahoma State move into the rankings this week, replacing the departed Rutgers, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin.

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  • Published On Oct 29, 2012
  • Saturday Superlatives: Your Week 9 alternative viewing guide

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    Sean Renfree can levitate, but can he top the ‘Noles? (AP)

    There are many ranked-on-ranked games this college football Saturday, including No. 3 Florida vs. No. 12 Georgia, No. 15 Texas Tech at No. 4 Kansas State, No. 5 Notre Dame at No. 8 Oklahoma and No. 13 Mississippi State at No. 1 Alabama. This is not a preview of those games. (For more big-picture football content, please visit Andy Staples’ Walkthrough.)

    • Locavore football for the environmentally conscious consumer. Devotees of farm-to-fan football, please note these geographic rivalry games on the schedule for Week 9: Temple at Pitt (noon E.T.), NC State at North Carolina (12:30 p.m.), No. 23 Ohio at Miami (Ohio) (3:30 p.m.), and UTEP at Houston (4:30 p.m.).

    • Game that should be played at night but isn’t. UTEP at Houston. UTEP being UTEP, and Houston being half responsible for that 72-42 SMU box score that so terrified the daintier set, this one ought to start and end under cover of darkness. It just seems a more fitting setting for whatever wackiness is about to ensue.

    • Conference curiosity. We remind you at this time that a) Duke leads its division and is scheduled to play No. 11 Florida State in Tallahassee b) for the Seminoles’ homecoming game. Who is carrying the bigger jinx here? Impossible to discern. Kickoff is at 3:30 p.m.

    • Nonconference curiosities. BYU at Georgia Tech (3:00 p.m.) and Kent State at No. 18 Rutgers (3:30 p.m.).

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  • Published On Oct 26, 2012
  • Designated Read: Clemson deftly avoids Clemsoning

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    Tajh Boyd displays fierce jazz hands and passing acumen. (AP)

    • No. 14 Clemson 42, Wake Forest 13. Where to begin: Clemson’s Tajh Boyd set school records for single-game passing yards (428) and touchdown passes in a half (five). That also ties his own single-game touchdown passing record, which he shares with Cullen Harper. Each scoring pass was thrown to a different receiver. Sammy Watkins caught balls with a vengeance, if that’s possible, setting a program record for single-game receiving yards (202 on eight catches). And we may have already sourced the Deacs’ primary error, which is quite correctable: Y’ALL S’POSED TO BE TURNIN’ LEFT IN THAT THING[BOX | RECAP]

    • No longer technically under our purview, but …  Former LSU teammates Tyrann Mathieu, Jordan Jefferson, Karnell Hatcher and Derrick Bryant were arrested yesterday on drug charges after officers were summoned to Mathieu’s apartment complex pursuing a complaint that “a man [was] attempting to force his way in to the complex through a security gate.” (The interloper in question was Jefferson, if any of you have any remaining jokes you’d like to burn off about his abilities against other kinds of defenses.)

    • Now here’s some sunshine. “Head coaches in football and basketball will be held directly accountable for NCAA rules violations by members of their coaching staff in radically new legislation that is expected to be adopted Tuesday by the Division 1 Board of Directors,” and it just gets spicier from there. Our pal and former colleague George Schroeder has more.

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  • Published On Oct 26, 2012
  • Designated Read: This Saturday, Broncos will ride Cowboys

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    Just because Troy Calhoun communicates in a series of airplane noises doesn’t mean you get to call him “Flyboy,” Dave Christensen. (AP)

    • So some Mountain West officials walk into an internet café … Dave Christensen getting away with a reprimand for what he said to Troy Calhoun made a lot more sense last week before YouTube video of what Dave Christensen actually said (warning: explicit language) got around. Now that it’s a thing, Christensen will serve a one-week suspension and pay a $50,000 fine. The game he’ll miss will feature his 1-6 Cowboys hosting the 6-1 Boise State Broncos.

    • Also double-secret probated. The ACC issued a blanket release covering the various disciplinary actions to be leveled against North Carolina freshman linebacker Shakeel Rashad, two officials from the UNC-Duke game and the entire crew from the FSU-Miami matchup.

    • Mark Richt has lost control of … hey, WAIT A MINUTE. Sorry, we just never get to use that joke in real life, and then when we do it feels really weird.

    • Bowl projections include forecasts of unceasing sadness. There’s not much we like better than a set of imaginary bowl matchups that includes the phrase “NO ELIGIBLE TEAMS.”

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  • Published On Oct 23, 2012
  • Designated Read: Move over, Baby Mangino

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    Baby Mangino, you had a hell of a run. You achieved internet glory and are surely a robust and take-no-prisoners schoolchild by now. We wish you all the best, and must now pass your mantle to another:

    • No. 2 Oregon 43, Arizona State 21. Stewart Mandel took in last night’s carnage in Tempe:

    For exactly three plays Thursday, No. 2 Oregon looked mortal. On second down of the Ducks’ first possession, the quarterback fumbled. One play later, Arizona State quarterback Taylor Kelly threw a 28-yard touchdown.

    “I don’t know if there can be a worst start,” said Oregon defensive coordinator Nick Aliotti. “And then we decided that maybe, possibly we wanted to play today.”

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  • Published On Oct 19, 2012


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