Story By: Erin Zollars
Photos By: Sol Tucker
College Park, MD–
When many of the college football ranking folks were taking a look at Maryland for consideration into possibly cracking into the Top 25, it was debatable if they belonged in the Top 30 teams with some of their victories during the first three weeks, well today that all changed as they toppled Purdue with a 50-7 victory.
Not only did it give first-year coach DJ Durkin his fourth straight win to start the season and Maryland (4-0, 1-0) its biggest margin of victory ever in a Big Ten game, it helped keep the momentum going into next Saturday’s game at Penn State.
“Obviously you never want turnovers or interceptions, but to see how he responded was great; Perry saw our confidence in him as well,” Durkin said. “The very next time we had the ball on offense Walt [Bell] called a pass, Perry threw the ball and we were like, ‘Let’s go.’
“No one is going to get shellshocked by that. We haven’t had a turnover this year so we haven’t had a sudden change situation defensively. For us to go out there and hold them to no points, that was great for momentum. I thought it was a great response by our defense.”
Maryland’s margin of victory was its largest in a conference game since a 62-14 win over Wake Forest in 2010, when the Terps were still in the ACC.
The 173 points the Terps have put up so far this season is the most by any Maryland team after four games.
Prior to the start of the season there was some doubt about what the Terps would turn to for veteran leadership at quarterback, Perry Hills has stepped up his game and leading this offense to what is sure to be a Bowl season with the continued emergence offense.
