Maryland Football: Ralph Friedgen Should Use Bye To Straighten Out Offense

Maryland’s off week provides a pretty clear line of demarcation between the red velvet and red meat portions of Maryland’s football season. Among the Terps’ opponents to this point, only West Virginia was clearly a top competitor.  But you know what?  I'll take 4-1 at this point.  Happily.  So that we may never forget, Maryland has now doubled last season’s win total.

Does that make this season a success? Well, yeah, kind of. 

Is it enough to salvage jobs for Ralph Friedgen and his offensive coordinator and Debbie Yow-designated successor James Franklin? No.

There’s no reason to believe anything has changed: Friedgen and Franklin are likely still auditioning for their jobs—a bowl game keeps them in, anything else puts them on the street. Two more wins gets them eligible. It’s about to get a lot tougher, but with winnable games against Boston College, Wake Forest, and Virginia, this is a doable thing.

And with that prize in mind, the bye is a perfect time for Friedgen to set some things straight in College Park. Anytime now, Fridge. Ball’s in your court.

Let’s start with the obvious: quarterback. I won’t rehash the back story, but in a nutshell, Danny O’Brien, while shaky at times, has clearly outplayed incumbent Jamarr Robinson. Take a look at the numbers:

O’Brien: Two starts, 32-63 passing, 499 yards, 6 TDs, 0 Ints, 99.8 yds/gm
Robinson: Three starts, 21-43 passing, 308 yards, 4 TDs, 2 INTs, 102.7 yds/gm

Oh, what’s that you say? Jamarr also makes a difference with his feet?

Oh, right. I almost forgot about the 29 big yards per game, the zero touchdowns, and the 10 sacks. I know he’s playing behind a soggy line, but if he was mobile enough to turn every broken play from chicken feathers to chicken salad, don’t you think he’d have done it by now?

Given the stats, it’s a no-brainer to name Danny O’Brien the starter, right? Practice him with the first team, build his knowledge and confidence, bid a respectful goodbye to the Robinson era. After all, O’Brien took all the snaps against Duke and FIU.

But Friedgen still doesn’t seem willing or able to make a definitive change. Maybe he’s too proud to admit he was wrong about Robinson. Maybe he doesn’t want to hurt Jamarr’s feelings. Maybe he has reservations about O’Brien being The Man. Whatever the reasons are, they don’t have much to do with actually putting your team in the best position to win.

There’s no such thing as a quarterback platoon. Those types of experiments are fine against Morgan State, but with the meat of the schedule on the way, it’s time to put the test tubes back in the lab and make a commitment to your one (and only) rightful and deserving starter.

That’s on Friedgen, but Franklin shouldn’t get off so easily, either.

At first glance, the attack has seemed fairly balanced: 172 rushes versus 107 passing attempts. But once you realize that 40 of those rushing attempts came from QBs (keeping in mind that sacks also count as rushes), and that a lot of the running happened in the Morgan State blowout and versus ground-happy Navy, there might be a little distribution issue there.

This also manifests at the individual level. Like Darrius Heyward-Bey before him, Torrey Smith has not gotten enough looks, period. He has 17 receptions thus far, or 3.4 per game. He is 19th in the nation in total receiving yards with 405, but doesn’t crack the top 100 for total receptions. Of the top 50 receivers for yards, Torrey has the least number of catches. It’s not news that they need to get him the ball, but until it starts happening consistently, it still needs to be said.

Demanded, even.

If Franklin can’t get himself out of his sideline tunnel vision, then the consequences of that are on no one but him.

And then there’s Da’rel Scott. Remember him? The Terps’ former 1,000-yard rusher? Oh, he’s averaging 5 yards a carry so far. Too bad he only got four carries at West Virginia. His carries by game are 10-8-4-15-14. It looks like things are starting to get a little more consistent; here’s hoping that trend holds.

Don’t get me wrong: Davin Meggett is having a nice year. And unlike QBs, running backs can flourish in a platoon. But it seems the Terps coaches forget they have an All-ACC rusher on their sideline.

Oh, Da’rel, did you want some carries?  Ooooh, that was the final whistle. (Wince) 

Next game, OK?  Cool? OK.

Bottom line: all the fans know how this team butters its bread: with a 20-inch machete, blindfolded, jumping out of an airplane. And they’re not using any of that Smart Balance stuff, either. Give ‘em the Land O’ Lakes, bro. You think they’re worried about tomorrow?

So if this is their identity, fine. All the more exciting for us. But there’s no need to coat that razor’s edge with olive oil by creating unnecessary instability in your offense. So come on, coaches. You’ve got a week and a half before Clemson. Make your decisions, solidify your strategies, find out what—and who—is going to win games for you, and go with it.

After all, your jobs depend on it.