Story By: Andrew Lang
Photos By: Sol Tucker
College Park, MD–
In the game of sports, you don’t always go by the records or how many games you have knocked off your opponent in the past 4 seasons, but tonight, in a must win game, the Terps have appeared to have done just that against Rutgers.
Athan Kaliakmanis led the way for the Scarlet Knights and completed 20 of 30 passes for 238 yards and two touchdowns without an interception. Rutgers (6-4, 3-4) settled the outcome by outscoring the Terps 10-0 in the fourth quarter at SECU Stadium.
The Terps held Kyle Monangai to 97 yards on 25 carries in his return after he missed a win over Minnesota with an injury. But the standout running back reached the end zone a couple times and surpassed 1,000 yards rushing on the season. His 6-yard scoring run in the third quarter immediately after Kaliakmanis completed a 6-yard pass on fourth-and-2, gave the Scarlet Knights a 21-17 lead. This would become the difference in the game.
After the game, many people have questioned Head Coach Mike Locksley’s decision to keep Billy Edwards Jr. at quarterback after he failed to find the ball down field with accuracy again today.
The thing I’d like to see Billy do is, with some of the accuracy passes, the balls that we have a chance to complete, we got to make those plays. But some of these interceptions that I’ve always said, it was easy to say we threw an interception. But we don’t run the right route, or we’re not in the right location,” said Locksley.
“Throwing the ball is timing and spacing. Some of it’s on the quarterback. Some of it’s on the receivers being where they need to be and some of it’s on the protection. So, as I’ve said before, quarterbacks get a lot of credit, but they also get a lot of blame. Billy, for the most part, we gotta be able to hit the open guys at times. We didn’t do that today,” said Locksley.
Next up for the Terps, Iowa. It’s clear that the Terps needs to find some leadership on the field for this game, as they now have to win the next two games to even make it to the post season.
