BLOOMINGTON, IND. — Maryland coach DJ Durkin said early in the week leading up to Saturday's game at Indiana that neither he nor his Terps were thinking about the possibility of becoming bowl-eligible with a win over the Hoosiers.
The first-year coach reiterated that thought after his team's 42-36 loss at Memorial Stadium on Saturday in a game where Maryland fought back from an early two-score deficit to grab the lead right before halftime, only to lose it for good late in the third quarter.
Not only was Durkin clearly upset with a defense that had been gouged for 650 yards overall and 414 yards rushing behind three Indiana running backs who each had over 100 yards, but also with the notion that he would even mention what's ahead to his team in the locker room after the game.
Maryland (5-3, 2-3 Big Ten) will now begin a three-week gantlet against top-10 teams. The Terps play at No. 2 Michigan next week, followed by a home game against No. 6 Ohio State and a trip to No. 7 Nebraska.
It means that any realistic chance of earning a sixth win to become bowl-eligible in Durkin's first season will likely have to wait until the regular-season finale against Rutgers on Nov. 26 at Maryland Stadium.
"It's not about the stretch or the next four games," Durkin said. "How can you possibly communicate with a team that way? Get ready for three games from now right now? It's put your team together, and figure out the best way possible way to go win the game that week.
"That's what we did this week. We tried to do it. We fell short. We didn't have a good enough plan. We didn't execute it good enough on the field. What we're going to do today is we're going to figure out the best plan starting today when we get on the buses and the plane and figure out the best way to beat Michigan."
Asked if the collective inexperience of a team that has played 15 true freshmen — on Saturday, safety Qwuantrezz Knight became the eighth to start — caught up with the Terps, Durkin said, "I don't want to hear anything about inexperience, or young guys, whatever. We're in Game 8. You're not young anymore. Everybody's playing with [young] guys."
Durkin acknowledged that his defense was caught off-guard by Indiana's Wildcat offense, which featured two backups — junior quarterback Zander Diamont and 270-pound freshman running back Tyler Natee. Diamont broke free for several long runs, including a game-clinching 52-yard touchdown in the final minute, while Natee, a former high school quarterback, bulled over the Terps.
Junior running back Devine Redding led Indiana (4-4, 2-3) with 130 yards on 17 carries, while Diamont picked up 104 yards on 11 carries and Natee added 111 yards on 18 carries. Diamont's second touchdown of the game stretched Indiana's lead to 42-30 with 49 seconds left.
"They hadn't done [the Wildcat] yet this year, so early on it was [a surprise]," Durkin said. "I thought we adjusted the call well enough to how we wanted to play it. We didn't tackle well, we didn't execute. Credit to them, they made the plays. We certainly didn't play at any sort of standard that would help us win a game."
Said junior linebacker Jermaine Carter Jr., "We had a couple of misfits that obviously led to huge runs, even at the end of the game. When we got the quarterback, everybody has to know what they're doing. We just have to play hard to the finish no matter what the outcome would be."
Though Maryland's offense gained 517 yards of its own, including 142 yards on a career-high 13 carries from sophomore running back Ty Johnson and 248 yards passing from quarterback Perry Hills, a pair of fourth-quarter fumbles by the fifth-year senior damaged Maryland's chances to get its first Big Ten road win under Durkin.
The second fumble, when Hills was stripped by Indiana linebacker Marcus Oliver deep in Maryland territory a few minutes after Oliver's crunching tackle forced Hills to lose the ball out of bounds for a 10-yard loss, resulted in a 2-yard touchdown by Natee that stretched Indiana's lead to 35-24 with 8:30 left in the game.
Hills also threw a first-quarter interception that the Hoosiers turned into a long touchdown drive.
"Perry did some things really well. Obviously there's some things he could have done better," Durkin said of Hills, whose acrobatic 5-yard touchdown run, where he leaped over an Indiana defender, cut the deficit to five with a little under four minutes remaining.
Sophomore wide receiver D.J. Moore, whose 23-yard touchdown catch late in the first half had given the Terps their first lead of the game, said the fact that Maryland had trouble maintaining the momentum it gained at halftime was disappointing, even disheartening.
"It was hard knowing that we were going to play fast, try to go score. But when it didn't happen, it hit the heart but we still had to go out and compete," said Moore, who caught five passes for 81 yards.
That's what the Terps will have to keep doing as the schedule gets much more difficult.
Johnson, whose 66-yard touchdown run in the first quarter helped get the Terps get back in the game, said not completing the comeback and getting the win to become bowl-eligible was an opportunity lost.
"Yeah, we were hoping with the preparation and everything to come down here and get a road win, get that sixth win and so we would be bowl-eligible, but that's for farther down the road," he said. "We do have to prepare for next week and want to go from there."
NOTES: Hills added a 5-yard touchdown pass to senior wide receiver Teldrick Morgan (Meade) on an untimed play at the end of regulation after a penalty on the Hoosiers. ... Moore has now caught passes in 16 straight games, the longest streak by a Maryland player since Torrey Smith caught passes in 30 straight games. ... It was the most yards Maryland had in a game since the season opener against Howard (519).
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