Story By: Andrew Lang
Photos By: Sol Tucker
College Park, MD–
After the last few games, we have begun to wonder if this Terps team or any in coming years will be able to actually knock off Penn State. It’s almost if the dead horse has been beaten so many times it’s not even worth mentioning competing in the Big Ten for a title anymore if you can’t knock off the teams that matter, or even stay close in the game with them. It doesn’t get any easier from here folks.
Maryland had some home in the first half when they kept the game within reach at 14-7, that’s when the second half Penn State offense kicked in and it was the rear-view mirror that Penn State was looking into by the middle of the fourth quarter.
Maryland quarterback Taulia Tagovailoa completed passes to nine different receivers and finished with 286 yards and two touchdowns. The stats are irrelevant again as the mistakes began to pile up late. Tagovailoa committed two fourth-quarter turnovers that resulted in Penn State scores.
Perhaps the biggest note to pay attention after another Maryland loss by big numbers is that Penn State has outscored Maryland 112-29 and sacked Taulia 16 times since they boasted that Pandemic game and blew it up on Twitter like it was the biggest victory in program history. Only about 15 people actually saw that game.
Another notable coming out of this horrendous loss takes us back to 2012 when the Terps players refused to shake the Penn State players hands at the coin toss, the Terps have gone 1-7 since that game. In those games the average score has been PSU 45.3 and Terps 12.3. Those numbers seemed to match those records again today.
Maryland has lost four straight games, the first time it’s done so since 2019, when it lost seven in a row. It has three games remaining to clinch bowl eligibility, two of which come on the road. The other is against Michigan, ranked No. 2 in the most recent AP poll.
“We made quite a few mistakes today and we couldn’t get our offense going in the first half and they did,” said Terps Head Coach Mike Locksley.
After today Penn State has won its 15th consecutive game in College Park and has outscored Maryland 207-32 in its last four road games here.
