The Terps are looking to get back on track after a week off.
The bye week couldn’t have come at a better time for Maryland football.
Nineteen days ago, the Terps were 5-0 and battling against Ohio State. Fast forward to today, and they’re looking to get back on track after two straight losses. Not to mention the off-the-field distraction of having an assistant coach away from the team after being arrested.
[Maryland football assistant coach Kevin Sumlin arrested, charged with DUI ]
Head coach Mike Locksley compared having the bye week to a NASCAR pit stop, with the team being able to refocus, refuel and rest up.
Quarterback Taulia Tagovailoa seconded that, saying, “Right in the smack middle of our season, [it] gives us time, you know, to heal up for another strong five [or] six games left to go.”
Perhaps the bye week will be the break the Terps need. Despite a pre-bye loss to Illinois deflating their early-season momentum, that result two weeks ago will be put in the rearview mirror.
Maryland will look to get back in the win column Saturday when it travels to Northwestern, a team that has surprised many with its close efforts and one that Locksley called “very dangerous.”
Most projected the Wildcats — a team ailing from the effects of the program’s internal turmoil — to finish last in the conference. But interim head coach David Braun has his team playing with a chip on its shoulder, and the Wildcats are just one game under .500.
“[Northwestern] sees this as a game that they have to have, and so I expect to get their best when we head up to Chicago,” Locksley said.
It’s also a must-win for Maryland, who should be healthier with the expected returns of injured players Tarheeb Still, Dante Trader Jr., Corey Dyches and Corey Bullock.
The Terps played a solid, mistake-free brand of football to open Big Ten play. They need to get back to that against the Wildcats.
“Through the course of the season, you might have like a little bit of slumps or whatever,” linebacker Donnell Brown said. “But as long as you get back to what you actually know, what you got to do — well, the wins start coming back.”
Unfortunately for the Terps, recent history has not been kind to them in games this time of the year. They lost their game directly after their bye in each of the past two seasons.
While veteran offensive lineman Delmar Glaze blamed the team’s lack of intensity for those struggles, Locksley was ready to flip the page.
“The past doesn’t define our present,” he said.
Maryland just needs its present to be more like the start of the season than its most recent stretch.