Ten things to know about Maryland

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It’s been an interesting road for redshirt junior quarterback Tyrell Pigrome, who will likely start against Indiana this weekend. He played well enough in his freshman season in 2016 to earn the starting job at Maryland in 2017, but he suffered an ACL injury in the third quarter of Maryland’s 51-41 win over Texas and missed the season.

During his redshirt sophomore season, he took over for an injured Kasim Hill in the last two-plus games of the season, nearly knocking off then-No. 9 Ohio State in the process. Before this season, Josh Jackson transferred in from Virginia Tech and earned the job over Pigrome too.

Jackson had been fairly inconsistent this season but tallied 10 touchdowns and four interceptions. Pigrome was not as good in his start against Purdue last week. His two interceptions – a pick-six down nine points with seconds left in the first half and an interception in Purdue territory early in the third quarter – gave Purdue the opportunity to turn the game into a blowout, and the Boilermakers obliged.

Pigrome did show flashes of a play-making ability that runs true through the Maryland offense, when he broke open a 61-yard touchdown run off of a bootleg.

Pigrome finished his day in West Lafayette 21-of-39 passing, with 218 yards, no passing touchdowns, two interceptions, 13 carries for 107 yards and the one rushing touchdown.

Maryland is, and has been over the course of the last few years, reliant on big plays to score. Rarely do th eTerrapins piece together long, methodical drives. These are the playmakers, outside of Pigrome, that need to make plays for Maryland to put up big scores.

Anthony McFarland

Redshirt sophomore running back Anthony McFarland has become well-known in the conference for his speed and big-play ability after he ran for 1,034 yards on just 131 carries and averaged 10 yards per reception last year.

Against Indiana, McFarland actually had his first high-volume game of his career, as he carried the ball 29 times, which remains a career high. He ran for 210 yards, which is certainly a high number, but McFarland’s longest carry was 29 yards and he was kept out of the endzone. For many teams facing him, that’s a success if other parts of the offense are mitigated, and Indiana did a good job of that in the win.

So far this season, McFarland hasn’t broken as many big plays as he did as a freshman. He’s carried the ball 66 times for 340 yards and seven touchdowns.

Javon Leake

Javon Leake has carried the ball 79 times in his career and averages 9.5 yards per carry. Last year was his first season with a solidified role on the team, as he saw 34 carries in 11 games, but he already has 36 carries in six games and that explosiveness hasn’t suffered yet.

Leake has hit double-digit yards per carry three times this season and the only game he was held below seven yards per carry was against Penn State. He also returned a kickoff for a touchdown against Rutgers.

Tayon Fleet-Davis

Running back Tayon Fleet-Davis has actually carried the ball more often (41 times) than Leake, but he only averages 4.5 yards per carry. He can get open in the passing game, where he’s caught 11 passes – tied for second-most on the team – and broke one for 50 yards and a score.

Dontay Demus Jr.

Sophomore receiver Dontay Demus has made big plays since he started seeing the field as a freshman in 2018. He averaged 21.4 yards per catch on his 13 receptions last season. This season, as he has become the only consistent receiver in the passing game for Maryland, he still averages just under 17 yards per catch on his team-high 23 receptions.

Darryl Jones and Brian Cobbs

Wide receivers Darryl Jones and Brian Cobbs don’t get looks very often in the passing game – 16 targets for Jones, 11 for Cobbs – but they’ve proven an ability to make big plays. Jones has caught a pass for 49 yards and leads the team with 13 yards after catch per reception and Cobbs has caught a pass for 39 yards. Both have earned five first downs on their seven catches each.

Maryland leans on its tight ends heavily in the passing game. Chigoziem Okonkwo and Tyler Mabry are two of the top-three most-targeted receivers in the Maryland offense so far this season.

On their 36 targets, 21 have been completed for a 58-percent completion rating, which barely shows on the Big Ten radar, but when they connect, there is usually some kind of production, as they’ve become some sort of security blankets when big plays are needed. Seventeen of the 21 receptions between the two of them have gone for first downs, and the other four went for touchdowns – three for Mabry, one for Okonkwo.

As stated before, Maryland makes most of its explosive plays through the run game, but each running back has success in his own areas.

McFarland is, by far, the most successful when he carries the ball left of the left tackle’s outside shoulder. He averages nearly 10 yards per carry and runs in that direction 27 percent of the time.

Leake likes to run between the tackles. Sixteen of his 36 carries have been in the three gaps between the left shoulder of his right guard and the right shoulder of his left tackle, and he average double-digit yards per carry in each gap. He has 264 yards after contact and a total of 341 yards rushing this season, and a majority of those yards after contact come from runs in those gaps, as he’s broken off runs of 30, 42 and 64 yards in those gaps.

The clear mismatch between Indiana and Maryland is simple. Indiana is rated second in the conference in passing offense (303 passing yards per game), and Maryland is rated last in passing defense (279 passing yards allowed per game).

One of the reasons the Maryland passing defense is poor is because its linebackers are not good in coverage. While Chance Campbell has the best coverage grade of anyone on the team, he still surrendered both his receivers’ targets against Penn State and again against Purdue.

Ayinde Eley, who is on the field more than any other linebacker and good in run defense, is a complete liability in coverage. All 12 targets to receivers he was covering against Penn State and Purdue were completed for 136 yards, six first downs and a touchdown.

Peyton Hendershot should see a heavy workload against Maryland after having just three catches in the last two weeks. Tight ends have been major features in the passing attacks against the Terps.

In total, Maryland has allowed more than 400 yards to two Big Ten opponents – Penn State and Purdue – and has also allowed three passing touchdowns on four occasions. It should create a prime opportunity for Mike Penix to rebound from what was his most inconsistent outing against Rutgers on Saturday.

In a conference full of teams with strong pass rushes, Maryland is trying to add its name to the list. The Terrapins come in just behind Ohio State, Penn State, Wisconsin, Michigan and Michigan State and just ahead of Indiana in total sacks, with 17. Indiana has 16.

What makes the pas rush fierce is strength at defensive end. Keandre Jones and Shaq Smith both start and have both gotten to the quarterback a combined 6.5 times. Between them, they’ve hurried the quarterback 15 times and hit him while he is throwing seven times.

Eley, though a liability in coverage, has rushed the quarterback 10 times but has yet to record his first sack of the season.

There are only two teams in the Big Ten to attempt just one field goal inside the redzone – Maryland and Illinois. Illinois because it’s been good at scoring touchdowns in the redzone when it cracks the redzone (15 touchdowns in 17 appearances), and Maryland because it refuses to kick field goals inside the 20-yard line.

Maryland is among the worst teams in the conference to score in the redzone. It has cracked the 20-yard line 25 times and scored on 17 of those attempts. All of them were touchdowns because it missed the one attempted field goal.

The Terrapins have thrown one interception inside the redzone, and the six other times they failed to score was because they attempted a fourth-down conversion. They’re 4-of-14 on total fourth-down conversions. Obviously, those decisions are made in game script, but the statistics are alarming when compared to other Big Ten teams.

But since going 12-of-14 as a freshman at Maryland in 2018, Joseph Petrino has taken two field goal attempts this year and missed them both.

A major drawback of a boom-or-bust offense is that the opponent typically has the ball for a longer amount of time. That has come back to bite Maryland in Big Ten play so far.

Even though the total number of plays ran over the duration of the season only favors opponents 434-431, that stat is padded by the blowouts Maryland handed out in the first two weeks of the season. It never ran fewer than 78 plays in non-conference matchups, which will take a toll on non-Big Ten defenses.

Against Big Ten opponents, even Rutgers, who Maryland beat 48-7, the pendulum has swung the other way. Maryland has only been able to run as many as 65 plays and opponents have ran as few as 72, with the biggest disparity coming against Penn State (80-58).

It might seem trivial, but for a team that relies on big plays to boost its offense, every play counts, and against Big Ten opponents, there have been fewer opportunities for those big plays, which contributed to the massive losses to Penn State and Purdue.

Indiana has proven capable of limiting the number of plays run by the best in the conference – Ohio State (71) and Michigan State (69) – and also limited Rutgers to 46.

Maryland – as most teams with speed are – is good in the return game. It has already returned both a kickoff and a punt for touchdowns.

Javon Leake returned the kickoff for a score, and DJ Turner returned the punt. They are both the regular returners in those respective scenarios, and Leake is rated second-best at returning kickoffs in the Big Ten.

The positive for Indiana is that it ranks No. 4 in the conference in kickoff coverage and No. 6 in net average on punts.

It’s no secret that Maryland hasn’t been the most successful football program in the last decade, but it’s worked its way to bowl eligibility three times and lost all three bowls since its last postseason victory in 2010.

Randy Edsall, for all that he did for the Maryland program, including getting it into the Big Ten in 2014, couldn’t get that bowl win, and neither could DJ Durkin. Maryland is on its fifth head coach tenure since that last bowl win, and this season isn’t looking promising, as the Terps need three wins out of games against Indiana, Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio State, Nebraska and Michigan State after losing to Temple, Penn State and Purdue.

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