Randy Edsall talks Maryland's Saturday open scrimmage

COLLEGE PARK, Md. - The Maryland football team held an open scrimmage on Saturdayafternoon as part of Fan Appreciation Day at Byrd Stadium. After a nearly two hour scrimmage, the team signed autographs for fans on the field.

"The thing I liked about today is that we got 53 plays for the first group, 47 for the third group and 37 for the second group," said Maryland head coach Randy Edsall. "We had 137 plays today and the guys ended up doing a lot of great things."

Four quarterbacks saw action for the Terps as personnel rotated after each series. Junior Perry Hills threw a pair of touchdowns, while senior Daxx Garman threw for 135 yards and scored a rushing touchdown. Junior Caleb Rowe and freshman Gage Shaffer also saw action.

"We will go back and watch the film and evaluate them and decide our steps moving forward from there," explained Edsall. "We will evaluate each of them based on all the practices and everything we've done from the first two weeks. We have charted and graded everything and we will base our decision off what we look for in a quarterback."

Maryland's ground game was led by senior Brandon Ross and freshman Ty Johnson. Ross ran for 80 yards on eight carries, while Johnson posted 52 yards on eight carries and scored a touchdown.

"What you saw out of Brandon (Ross) today is what he's been doing all camp," said Edsall. "I am very pleased about what I saw today. He has carried over what he has been doing the first two weeks to today. He's been running very decisive and making great decisions. Brandon has had a really good camp and he has separated himself with the way he has performed."

Junior wide receiver Lavern Jacobs and freshman tight end Avery Edwards each hauled in touchdown receptions.

Maryland will wrap up its preseason camp on Wednesday and then begin preparing for the season opener against Richmond, which is slated for Saturday, Sept. 5 at Byrd Stadium. Kickoff is set for 12 noon.

More from Coach Edsall:

More on the quarterback selection process:

"We will look at how they handle the huddle, how they handle the scrimmage, their production and those things are predictive of how they were evaluated the first two weeks of camp. So again, we will evaluate it after today and see where we are. We told everybody it was a competition; if you tell kids that it's a competition and then go back and evaluate it on paper and don't go with what they are doing on the field that's when you have credibility problems. If we tell them this is what we are looking for and we are going to make decisions off of these things then we have got to stick to that."

On coaches' decision to play younger players:

"I wanted to get a look at the younger guys today - I know what some of the older guys can do. I have to find depth and I have to find out where we are for some of the positions so I made a decision to say that I didn't need to have certain guys in there today. I had to make sure that they are ready to go come Monday so I wanted to just give them a day off."

On Avery Edwards:

"Avery is going to continue to get better the more repetitions that he gets. He's going to do well. Seeing him today was a good thing; he's a big target and that's good for the quarterbacks. A guy like Avery, with that length and frame, it's an advantage for the quarterbacks to throw to him."

On defensive scheme:

"We limited what we could do today with those guys. We wanted to see what we could do just playing base and again we are still evaluating the players because I know what we are doing scheme wise. Plus, when you have an open scrimmage you don't know who is here watching so we didn't want to give away too many secrets. But Yannick Ngakoue, Jesse Aniebonam, Cavon Walker and all those guys have had a good camp. I was pleased with them and I have been pleased with them here in the preseason but we still have a lot of things to get done in the next two weeks."