Maryland blows 20-point second-half lead in 24-20 loss to Washington

COLLEGE PARK — So many times before when presented with a prime chance to change the perception around its program, Maryland has frittered away the opportunity.

The Terrapins’ latest bobble came on this first Saturday of October, a sun-drenched afternoon occasion in front of the first SECU Stadium sellout in two seasons.

Maryland carried a 20-0 lead deep into the third quarter before the Washington Huskies found life, scoring 24 unanswered points to comeback and stun the Terrapins, 24-20.

“Do I expect it? Of course, it should be expected for me,” Maryland coach Mike Locksley said of again failing to win in a high-leverage situation for his program. “But for us, we’re gonna be defined by what we do this year, what we’re doing with this team. And so if you look at comparison, and you look at history, then yeah, then you would say that. But I can tell you, based on what I’ve seen from this team, how I saw they responded in the locker room just now, we will be defined by what we do and how we move forward.”

Terrapins freshman quarterback Malik Washington completed 30 passes for 219 yards with a passing and rushing touchdown along with an interception as the offense, which had been methodically grinding out lengthy scoring drives in the first 40 minutes clammed up and got conservative as the Huskies stormed back.

“The first drives were methodical, you know, taking what the defense gives us. I think we tried to do the same thing in the second half. It just sometimes it just doesn’t go your way,” Washington said. “There’s plays left out on the field that we have to make as a unit.”

Huskies QB Demond Williams Jr. threw for 275 yards and two touchdowns along with an interception, but he was most impactful with his feet, evading Maryland defenders who could get their hands on him but couldn’t bring him down — especially in the second half.

“The collective feeling was to continue to go out there and play the game that we played in the first half,” said linebacker Daniel Wingate. “To go out there, do our job, play physical, play fast. We didn’t need to do nothing special or extraordinary. We just had to continue to do what we do at the end of the day. And we didn’t do that.”

Huskies running back Jonah Coleman rushed for 57 yards on 18 carries and the winning 1-yard score with 3:21 left. The Huskies pulled off the comeback without three key starters: cornerback Tacario Davis, edge rusher Zach Durfee and offensive tackle Carver Willis, all out due to injuries.

“We’re a young, talented, inexperienced team, but there’s zero doubt in my mind that we’re talented. And much like I said before, every thing that we’ve made corrections with we’ve we’ve seen them go execute,” Locksley said. “Today was the first day we didn’t do it.”

Washington (4-1, 1-1 Big Ten) had previously been winless on the road as a Big Ten member (0-5) and had lost three times on trips to the Eastern time zone last season. For Maryland (4-1, 1-1), it marks the 10th-straight loss following a bye week under Locksley, who again offered little reason why the failures keep happening.

“I told them in the locker room, we’re going to learn a couple things about ourselves. One, how to manage success, which I didn’t think we did a great job of it in the bye week of managing the success without the distractions and the things that pop up,” Locksley said. “And now we’re gonna have to see how we manage adversity.”

After only 103 yards of total offense at halftime, the Huskies first sign of life came late in the third, putting together a nearly 8-minute drive that stalled just outside the red zone but led to their first points via a 36-yard field goal.

After a Maryland three-and-out, UW got driving again to bridge the third and fourth quarters. Williams led the Huskies 75 yards, finding star WR Denzel Boston for a 3-yard touchdown to halve the deficit, 20-10. 

The second-straight Terrapins’ three-and-out led to another UW score, with Williams finding receiver Dezmen Roebuck in-stride for a 34-yard score. Coleman capped it off with his 10th rushing touchdown of the season and UW’s third straight TD for the final margin.

“We were up on them the whole game … and just being able to finish it to the end, to see the clock hit zero, [is] something we got to work on,” Wingate said.

Maryland entered the game as the worst rushing team in the Big Ten, managing only 102.8 yards per game. Locksley abandoned any semblance of trying to run, with multiple empty-backfield formations in the game’s closing stages. After only 55 yards against the Huskies, that average will sink further.

“We’re an RPO system. We still have run-pass options, where today, what Malik faced was, at the end, they mixed between cover-two and man [coverage],” Locksley said. “And so, we got into, they’re getting cover-two, we need to run it. If they’re playing a little more man, then we’ve got to create and win one on one man battles, which today, we didn’t win enough of them, and we didn’t make enough good throws.”

Terrapins safety Jalen Huskey snagged his third interception of the season and ninth of his career on Washington’s first drive, as the Maryland defense held the Huskies to 103 yards and 1-of-6 on third downs in the first half. The turnover led to the first of kicker Sean O’Haire’s two field goals in the half and a 3-0 lead.

On Maryland’s second drive, Washington got into rhythm. The Terrapins picked up five first downs on the effort, the biggest on a 23-yard completion from Washington to Octavian Smith Jr. on third and 10 to the UW 4. The quarterback would run it in untouched on a left-side bootleg for the touchdown and a 10-0 lead.

Things ground to a halt in the second quarter, with Washington scraping together only 38 yards of offense on three drives. The final drive as the quarter expired provided the worst strike for Maryland, who lost freshman defensive line standout Sidney Stewart, the team’s sack leader, to a targeting penalty and disqualification after a video review.

“Those calls aren’t the reason we want to lost this thing. It’s we’ve got to take care of business on the field. Our players know we ain’t going to be given anything, so we wanted to take it or earn it, and we didn’t do that today,” Locksley said.

Maryland scored to open the second half, a nine-play, 75-yard drive that culminated in tight end AJ Szymanski’s first career TD on a 2-yard catch and a 20-0 lead. The score was set up by a 29-yard completion to Octavian Smith Jr. on a third down to get into the red zone, putting him over the 1,000-yard mark for his Maryland receiving career.

Incredibly, those were the last points UMD would generate. Its final four drives were fruitless; 19 plays that only produced 52 yards.

“They just took away some of the stuff that was working early in the game,” Washington said. “I have to watch the tape back and see exactly what they did. But there was some stuff that we had early on in the game plan that, you know, they had changed up a look or something like that, and ran something maybe we weren’t expecting.”

The quarterback, who’s played and led Maryland with the experience and poise of a senior, not a freshman, offered an optimistic perspective for the Terrapins’ future, beginning Oct. 11 with Nebraska.

“In a moment like this, when everybody’s down and people are pointing fingers and saying, you know, this, that, and the other, we’ve just got to understand, as a team and as a unit, that this is God’s plan for us,” Washington said. “We have to face adversity sometimes to come out of it stronger. Sometimes you’ve got to break the stick to mend it back together.”