2010 Maryland Terrapins: Maryland vs Navy

Just how ridiculous was Maryland's season-opening win over Navy at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore? Let's count the ways.

Maryland scored three points in the final three quarters... and won.

Maryland got outgained by more than 150 yards for the 18th time during the tenure of current head coach Ralph Friedgen. This was just the third occasion in which Maryland was actually able to win one of those games.

Navy rushed for over 400 yards (and lost). The Midshipmen had lost only two games in their entire football history when rushing for over 400 yards, once in 2007 and once in 1999. This game marked the third time that had happened. Navy’s record when rushing for over 400 yards is 27-3. That’s stunning, actually: Navy has rushed for more than 400 yards only 30 times over more than a century of collegiate football. Incredible.

Navy became the first team to run for over 400 yards against Maryland in 17 years… and the Midshipmen came up short.

Maryland threw for just 11 yards… and won.

Maryland came up with just four red-zone defensive stops throughout the entire 2009 season. On Monday afternoon, Maryland’s defense produced five red-zone stops against the vaunted Navy rushing attack.

That last detail shows how all of the above statistics could have existed within the same football game.

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Yes, believe it or not, Navy failed to score on five separate trips deep into Terrapin territory. The Midshipmen fumbled once at the Maryland 6, and then fumbled at the half-yard line when Navy quarterback Ricky Dobbs – so dependable for head coach Ken Niumatalolo last season – coughed up the pill just before he was about to break the plane of the goal line with the ball. A third drive stalled on the Maryland 2 at the end of the first half when Dobbs – on a play which started at the 12-second mark –ran in bounds while having no timeouts to burn. When Dobbs didn’t move the sticks (which would have thereby stopped the c lock), Navy had no remaining hope of getting another snap, be it for a field goal or a touchdown attempt. (A fourth red-zone failure came earlier in the day, when the Mids missed a32-yard field goal. That wound up mattering a lot as well.)

Oh, and then there was the fifth and final red-zone failure. It had a little to do with the outcome.

Navy had the ball at the Maryland 3 in the final two minutes. The Mids were outflanking the Terps at the line of scrimmage and seemed to have the percentages on their side. Just then, however, Navy committed a false start – the fifth Midshipmen penalty for the game (an absurdly high amount for a service academy team) – and moved back to the 8. A seven-yard gain put the ball inside the 1, but on fourth-down in the final half-minute, the game’s do-or-die play tilted toward Maryland. Terps’ defensive back Kenny Tate – owner of at least 9 tackles according to unofficial stats – surged forward and stuck Dobbs just six inches short of the goal line. The Navy juggernaut that has been so dependable in past years continued to crank out the yards, but on this weird day near Chesapeake Bay, Navy didn’t get the last two yards on three of its drives.

Maryland Terrapins vs Navy Midshipmen Recap