Maryland Game Preview
September 10, 2014 11:56 AM | General
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MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – When Dana Holgorsen studies the tape from Maryland’s James Madison and USF games this year he sees the exact same group of players that dismantled his West Virginia team a year ago in Baltimore.
“I don’t think there is anything different about them,” said Holgorsen. “(Maryland coach Randy) Edsall is going into his fourth year and has put his stamp on the program with the way they play.”
A quick comparison of Maryland’s two-deep lineups from the last two years shows 16 returning starters on both sides of the ball, including senior quarterback C.J. Brown, who gave the Mountaineer defense fits in last year’s game.
Brown passed for 217 yards and a touchdown and also ran for a score in Maryland’s 37-0 runaway victory. Brown is already the school career rushing leader for quarterbacks and is also moving up the career charts in touchdowns responsible for, now showing 43 after his two-TD performance in last Saturday’s come-from-behind win over USF.
Brown ran for 576 yards and accounted for 2,818 yards of total offense last season in leading the Terps to seven wins and a Military Bowl loss to Marshall.
West Virginia associate head coach Tom Bradley knows Brown very well from his days following Brown’s high school career when he was coaching at Penn State.
“I was able to watch C.J. play basketball in high school and I know how athletic he is,” said Bradley. “I had an opportunity to meet his parents and C.J. is a really talented and gifted athlete. He is a guy that is in total control of that football team. If you watch him he is a real unflappable type of guy.”
“Any time you have a quarterback that can run and throw the ball it can definitely cause more problems,” added junior safety Karl Joseph, who leads the team with 20 tackles through the first two games of the season. “We are just going to have to come up with a good game plan. I know the coaches are going to have a good game plan for us, and we are just going to have to execute it.”
The same guys who carried the ball last year against West Virginia’s defense are back (Brandon Ross and Kenneth Goins, Jr.) as are Maryland’s fleet wide receiving duo of Stefon Diggs and Deon Long.
Diggs was once considered the nation’s No. 1-rated high school wide receiver prospect and his Maryland career has lived up to his advanced billing, the junior now one of just 10 players in school history with more than 3,000 career all-purpose yards heading into Saturday’s West Virginia game.
So far this year Diggs leads the Terps in receptions (12) and receiving yards (102).
Long, who once briefly spent time at West Virginia before leaving to attend junior college, is second on the team with six catches for 90 yards. In last year’s game against the Mountaineers, Long caught a game-best six passes for 98 yards.
Wide receiver Marcus Leak is another viable pass catching option for Terps, the junior leads the team in yards per catch (17.8) and is coming off a two-TD performance in last weekend’s win against USF.
“Pretty much every team in the Big 12 has receivers who we have to cover,” noted Holgorsen. “They’re going to pose challenges and we better get used to it because those challenges are going to exist for the remainder of the year.”
On the other side of the ball, Maryland’s defense features eight returning players who started in last year’s West Virginia game and limited the Mountaineers to just 175 total yards and six first downs. It was the worst performance ever by a Dana Holgorsen-coached offense.
“It was a big challenge for us last year and we did not meet that challenge, as we all know,” noted Holgorsen.
Defensive lineman Andre Monroe leads all active FBS players with an average of 0.65 sacks per game after recording career sack number 15 ½ versus USF.
Linebacker L.A. Goree has registered 20 tackles in Maryland’s first two games and shows 202 tackles for his career. Goree was also very active in last year’s win against West Virginia, logging a team-best nine tackles and forcing a fumble – one of six turnovers the Maryland defense came up with for the game.
The Terp defense is allowing opponents to convert just 32.5 percent of their third down attempts and is also stout in the score zone where they are holding their opponents to a 60 percent conversion rate. Both of those areas were issues for the Mountaineers in last year’s game in Baltimore and also in this year’s season-opening loss to Alabama.
West Virginia is basically the same team that lost to Maryland last year with one exception – quarterback Clint Trickett.
“I think we’re in a much better place,” said Holgorsen. “I think we’re very different. I think our mentality is different. Although our players are the same and our scheme is the same, I think our mentality is in a much different place. We’re a more confident team; we’re playing with a lot more effort and energy and that’s going to hopefully make a big difference in the outcome of Saturday’s game.”
Last year, the Florida State transfer was still figuring things out and didn’t play against the Terps. A week later, Trickett was inserted into the starting lineup and led West Virginia to a 30-21 upset victory over 11th-ranked Oklahoma State in Morgantown, injuring his shoulder in the process.
“They still like to do a lot of things on defense to try and confuse you – a lot of pressures and blitzes, which is typical,” noted Trickett. “A lot of teams do that. That is their mentality and philosophy. It’s football though. We have a lot of good things to go up against it. There are good things we can do and they have a lot of good things they do well, too.”
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Post by WVU Football.
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Trickett’s 365 yards passing against Alabama were the second most the Crimson Tide have allowed under coach Nick Saban, and Trickett followed that up with a highly efficient, 35-of-40, 348-yard, two-TD performance in about three quarters worth of work against Towson.
The quarterback led West Virginia to scores on six of the eight possessions he was in the game against Towson, most of those of the time-consuming variety. What Holgorsen is still seeking are more explosive plays from some of his explosive playmakers.
Kevin White is certainly a prime candidate, the senior showing 19 catches for 244 yards and a touchdown. However, his longest reception is only 29 yards and he has found the end zone just one time so far this season.
“He’s had opportunities to get in the end zone,” said Holgorsen. “He’s playing great –and it’s night and day compared to what it was last year. The next step in his evolution of being a great player is getting into the end zone (more frequently).”
Pitt transfer Rushel Shell produced 71 yards on the ground against Towson in about a half’s worth of action, while junior Andrew Buie’s return to the field against the Tigers was a successful one as he ran for 70 yards on just nine carries, showing the coaching staff that he warrants more playing time.
The Mountaineer offense also unveiled touted true freshman quarterback William Crest, who directed a pair of second-half scoring drives in elevating himself to No. 2 on the depth chart behind Trickett. Holgorsen hinted earlier this week that he might consider some special packages for Crest under center in the coming weeks.
“He brings something to the table that’s pretty good,” said Holgorsen. “He is dynamic, physical, mature and is still learning. There were a lot of things that happened (against Towson) that he’s is not going to be able to get away with that stuff if the game is very close or if the game is not already decided. The good news is we will practice him a lot.”
Defensively, West Virginia produced its first shutout of the Holgorsen era and the first blanking since 2010 when the Mountaineers kept Coastal Carolina off the scoreboard in the ’10 season opener.
Last Saturday, West Virginia limited the Tigers to just 122 yards of offense – the fewest total yards the Mountaineers have permitted since holding Syracuse to 103 total yards in a 15-7 win in the Carrier Dome.
“The second team and third-team guys got in there and still played hard,” said Holgorsen. “The effort stayed the same regardless of who was out there. I’m glad it happened.”
WVU was better in all areas defensively, especially on third down where West Virginia limited Towson to a four-of-15 success rate last Saturday. Third-down defense has been one of the biggest areas of concern for the Mountaineers the last few years.
Saturday’s game will kick off at noon and will be televised on the Big Ten Network. Maryland will be unveiling a new “Star-Spangled Banner” themed uniform for Saturday’s game. Last year, the Terps did something similar in Baltimore.
“Maryland put in a petition to be able to wear white because they are unveiling some new, fancy uniforms,” said Holgorsen. “We said, ‘fine, we don’t care’ and we’re going to wear darker colors. We’ll wear a combination of blue and gold because we have to. The next time we play a road game, guess what? We’re going to wear white because that’s what we have to do.”
Maryland’s win last year snapped West Virginia’s seven-game winning streak in series play last season, reducing WVU’s advantage in the series to 26-22-2.
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