Ralph Friedgen Backtracks, Reaffirms Chris Turner's Starting Spot

You may remember Ralph Friedgen saying after the UVA loss that he would likely play Danny O'Brien or Jamarr Robinson in place of Chris Turner at some point in the near future. It looks like, after thinking it over, that won't be the case (for now).

I'm not down on Chris at all. I think he's one of our leaders and one  of our captains and he's made a tremendous contribution to this football program in the time he's been here. My answer to that question was more in reference to if we don't continue to do well, obviously I have to look to the future. It wasn't any disrespect toward Chris.

...

We're not disenchanted with Chris. If we don't start doing better, I think it's a thing where you have to look at next year. But right now, Im focusing on beating Duke. Chris is a very big, important part of that, but so is Jamarr. Right now, I think we're planning on holding Danny unless we really wanted to see where we were at with Jamarr.

Okay, so it's not exactly the most lucid of statements, but it looks like the overarching theme of it is that Turner's spot is secure, at least until Maryland loses a few more games. It also looks like (thankfully) O'Brien's redshirt won't be needlessly burned.

It still sounds like Jamarr will see some playing time, though, as he's apparently a big part of beating Duke. I don't really know why, but that's not for me to question (well, it is, but I'll let it slide). And really, JRob getting some PT makes sense.

The thing that really stuck me, though, is how Ralph talks about Chris. Earlier, he mentions that Turner "misconstrued" some of the things he said (which, in all fairness, were pretty damning) and goes out of his way to say he's done fine. That would indicate Chris wasn't much happy about getting benched, as he shouldn't be, and voiced that concern to Ralph, or it somehow got back to him. That was a lot of backtracking from someone who rarely backtracks.