More on Maryland's Turnover Bonanza

In case you didn't hear, Maryland turned the ball over quite a bit against Rutgers yesterday. By quite a bit, I mean a ton. Like, five times. That's a lot of turnovers.

It's so many turnovers that the last time it happened to Maryland was in 2006, when the Terps went into Morgantown and got beaten by West Virginia 45-24. It also occurred in 2004, when Maryland lost to VT 55-6. The memories hurt.

And that's it. The phenomenon has only occurred twice under Ralph Friedgen, who's been in power since 2001. Christ, it's only happened 3 times since 1999 (after that, the Terp record books get pretty fuzzy). And here's a shocker: Maryland lost all three of those games.

Yeah, turnovers are killers, but you don't need me to tell you that. However, maybe you need me to tell you that Maryland is an awful 117th in the nation in turnover margin this year, only better than Buffalo, Nevada, and Miami (OH), among whom there is a combined one win.

Let's make it worse, shall we? The Terps are 116th in the nation in TO lost, but that's also tied for second to last place. Thank god for Miami (OH); you made a good choice, Clay Belton. We're slightly less turnover prone than your old, now-winless team! Congratulations.

While we're on the topic of mistakes, how about sacks? The Terps are 113th in sacks allowed, but at least they're better than Virginia, who's dead last. They're also 114th in tackles for loss allowed - still better than the Cavs, but are they aspiring to be Virginia?

It's clear the Terps can't win like this, or anything close to like this. They aren't that good. As I've said before, it's my opinion that turnovers, when a trend appears, are a discipline issue, or at the very least a decision-making issue. When the players committing them are seniors and juniors, that's on the coaches for not instilling the discipline and decision-making. The line is young, so the coaches get a semi-pass on that, but it's their fault for not recruiting linemen at all in 2006. We'll have more on the coach/non-coach thing later, but it's pretty telling in my opinion. And unless a lot of things change fast, we're staring down the barrel of a three win season - or worse.