3 takeaways from Maryland football’s rout of Rutgers

Maryland football just absolutely curb stomped Rutgers to walk away with a 34-7 win on Homecoming.

At no point was this a close contest, and using words like “contest” and “game” partly understates just how bad the Scarlet Knights were. After seemingly overlooking Temple earlier in the season, the Terps didn’t make the same mistake twice and made sure Rutgers never had a chance.

Here are a few takeaways from the afternoon:

Rutgers was really, really bad. Like, historically bad.

The Terps were pitching a shutout until Rutgers put together a drive consisting completely of runs to score with under a minute left in the game. Quarterbacks Artur Sitkowski and Giovanni Rescigno combined to complete just 2 of 17 passes for eight total passing yards. To make matters worse, they completed more passes to the Terps than their own teammates. Sitkowski had four interceptions, bringing his total to 15 for the year against just three touchdowns, and Rescigno’s only pass of the day resulted in a pick. It’s literally one of the worst passing performances in history.

When the Scarlet Knights weren’t busy being completely inept offensively, they were busy getting pinned inside their own 20 by Wade Lees or completely botching returns. Lees placed five of six punts inside the 20 and had two downed inside the 10. Rutgers also let Maryland recover one of its own kickoffs during a weird first half of football.

Kasim Hill had an uneven day, but handled business.

The full range of Kasim Hill performances was also on display Saturday. The redshirt freshman finished the game with a career-high three passing touchdowns, but also went just 8-of-17 on pass attempts for 76 yards. His touchdown passes were precise, well-orchestrated strikes, but he also had some bad misses on plays with open receivers.

All Hill had to do against the Scarlet Knights was cap off drives end the endzone, and the touch on his scores was remarkable. On his second touchdown pass of the day, Hill saw Tayon Fleet-Davis with space in front of him, directed the running back and delivered the strike right over a Rutgers receiver.

Maryland’s offense is built around a running back room that finished Saturday’s game with 40 carries for 290 yards. Hill did what the Terps needed to win the game, but also showed there’s still room for improvement.

Ty Johnson joined elite company.

With a 65-yard rush for a score at the end of the first, senior back Ty Johnson joined an elite group of players. Johnson has now joined Torrey Smith, Lamont Jordan and Stefon Diggs as the only players in Maryland history to top 4,000 career all-purpose yards. He finished with 146 all-purpose yards, passed Jermaine Lewis on the way and sits just 10 yards back of Diggs (4,106) for third all-time with 4,096 career yards.

Johnson was humble when asked about what it meant to him, joking that his mom was the one that kept an eye on stats like that. However, after he left, interim head coach Matt Canada directed some praise his way.

“First of all, I think what a tremendous honor it is for him to have that record. Obviously he’s a humble young man,” Canada told reporters after the game. “In the history of Maryland football, only four players have had 4,000 total yards, and he’s one of those guys?So a great honor for him and a great honor for our football team and an offense doing a good job. I think our backs are playing so well. They’re explosive.”