Story By: Sol Tucker
Photos By: Sol Tucker
College Park, MD–
Today was a sort of a do or die game for both teams. The Terps who just have not been able to find their winning ways in the past few weeks and Indiana, well they just are the same Indiana team from the past few seasons.
While the final score of 38-35 might look like the Terps did big things offensively, they certainly didn’t show much in the first half. The second half is when Tagovailoa started to find some things that worked and the Terps were able to march down the field on a struggling Indiana defense.
Tagovailoa completed 26-of-40 as he became the first Terps quarterback to throw for 400 yards in a game since Danny O’Brien threw for 417 vs. NC State in 2010. His single-game passing yardage, ranks third all-time in Maryland history.
The Hoosiers would respond with 17 unanswered points, but the Terps found their groove again after a 42-yard pass from Tagovailoa to Rakim Jarrett, and Challen Faamatau’s second one-yard rushing touchdown of the day. A 14-yard pass from Tagovailoa to Carriere would extend the lead to 28-17, but a fake punt allowed the Hoosiers to kick a field goal, making it 28-20.
Despite all of the positive stuff, there is still plenty to work on if the Terps want to finish with more than 6 victories this season. The biggest note of the day was they allowed 446 total yards. Indiana, which entered averaging 113.3 rushing yards per game, ran for 204 yards. Running back Stephen Carr had 136 yards and two touchdowns, including a 66-yard sprint into the end zone that gave the Hoosiers a 17-14 lead early in the third quarter.
“We give up these explosive plays,” coach Mike Locksley said. “It’s one, two or three plays in every game that makes the difference. We’re very fortunate that those plays didn’t cost us the game.”
Next Saturday will be the biggest test in over two weeks for the Terps, a match-up against Penn State, who last year they found a way to knock them off 35-19.
Here are a few interesting stats about the upcoming game against Penn State.
Statistics | |
---|---|
Meetings total | 44 |
All-time series | Penn State leads, 40–3–1 |
Largest victory | Penn State, 70–7 (1993) Penn State, 66–3 (2017) |