The Upstate Life

Monday, September 08, 2008

Is It Time to Unplug the Fridge?

After last night's devastating loss to Middle Tennessee State (who?) I've nearly given up on the Fridge. How does a team with All-American talent such as Heyward-Bey and Da'Rel Scott lose to a middle of the pack squad from the Sun Belt conference?

Not only did I feel like I was watching TNN during Saturday night's piss poor broadcast, but I should've just not bothered to watch the damn thing altogether. (Oh, and note to Kelly Holcomb: Don't call your team “we” or “us” while commentating! This isn't high school football on cable access even though I think I've seen better play calling in JV games.)

This was, by far and large, the worst loss of the Friedgen era. Losing to a team in Murfreesboro, Tennessee in front of 22,000 fans was flat-out embarrassing and the blame entirely lies on the Fridge.

Just two weeks ago the Terps barely defeated Delaware at home. They won by a single touchdown against an FCS school! Imagine if Joe Flacco was still eligible. The Blue Hens would've easily left Byrd Stadium victorious.

Turner, perhaps the Terps' best option at QB now with Steffy inured, played terribly on Saturday but not all the blame lies on him. Our veteran offensive line, supposedly the best in the ACC, flat out sucked as the Blue Raiders D-line pressured Turner relentlessly and made it look easy as they penetrated Maryland's most experienced unit.

The genius play calling of James Franklin and his newly installed West Coast offense has to be called out as this guy has been, thus far, all bark and no bite. He was quoted as saying we were going to run up 50 points against opponents. News flash: We haven't even scored more than 30 points combined after two games against what was supposed to be schedule fodder before ACC play starts.

I'll let this season play out entirely before I call for Fridge's head, but the seat can't get any hotter after Saturday's humiliation. By the way, next up on the schedule is #25 California, a team who beat Washington State 66-3. In other words, it could get very ugly at Byrd this weekend.

Posted by Brett at 12:31 PM |