Aug. 26, 2003

Maryland Terrapin Gameday Central

The following are University of Maryland head football coach Ralph Friedgen's comments from his weekly gathering with local media. Friedgen and the Terrapins hit the road tomorrow for Thursday night's nationally-televised matchup with Northern Illinois.

On team's injury situation:
"Steve Suter, Bruce Perry, Lamar Bryant and Ed Tyler will not play (this Thursday at Northern Illinois). I think all of them are progressing; Lamar is probably the furthest behind, but is making good progress. I think Perry has a chance to be ready for next week, and maybe Steve and I think Ed will be allowed to play next week. Justin Duffie, Marcus Wimbush and Mario Merrills also will not play (due to injury). I'm not sure how long Duffie and Wimbush will be out, and Merrills is recovering and should be week-to-week."

"As far as Scott McBrien is concerned, he practiced yesterday and he seemed to be fine today. I don't think he's at full strength, but I think he's 90 percent and hopefully in a few days he'll be ready to go."

On team's preparation:
"I think our team is looking forward to playing this game. The physical part of it is done and now we have to settle into the mental and emotional preparation to get ready to play this game."

On Northern Illinois:
"This is a very good football team we are playing. Northern Illinois is very well coached, they have an experienced group of players who have been in games like this before, so they are a very capable football team. (Northern Illinois RB) Michael Turner is an excellent back, maybe one of the better backs in the country. They do a good job of play-action passing and throwing the ball up field, and that is something that we are going to have to do a good job covering on defense. Our dilemma is going to be to stop Turner on the run and also defend against the big play."

"Defensively, they have nine starters back and run extremely well to the ball. Some of the players who have jumped off the tape at me were Randy Drew, who is a very good cornerback who also returns kicks for them. Their middle linebacker (Nick) Duffy is a good player; their nose guard (Leonard) Cooksey is 6-1, 300 pounds. I like all of their linebackers--they run very well. Their defensive end Jason Frank was a starter for them last year and now they are listing Travis Moore as competing with him for the starting job, so they have pretty good depth."

"Their kicking game is pretty similar to ours, but there is only one problem: they have the No.1 kick returner in the nation, Dan Sheldon, and our kick returner won't be playing. Rich Parson and JoJo Walker will handle that job for us. They have an excellent place kicker; we have an excellent place kicker. They have a new punter; we have a new punter. We are going to have to do a good job in special teams, like always, and play sound football and hopefully we'll go up there and get our first win."

On the team's confidence compared to last year:
"I think last year we were a young football team and we had quite a few guys that hadn't been in a big game. This year we have a lot of guys who have, although there a few guys making the trip that haven't. The fact that our starting quarterback returns after a successful year and his confidence radiates throughout the whole offense. I am just hoping he can play as well as he practices. On defense we have a lot of kids playing in their last year, and I think that they are excited about playing and the chance to get after Mr. Turner."

On the possibility of taking Northern Illinois lightly:
"I sat in the tape room and I showed the team (Northern Illinois' game with) Wisconsin last season. In the first nine series for Wisconsin, they were doing the mamba offense - one-two-three-punt. They ended up with nine possessions, seven of them ended in third and 15 or higher and gave up 10 sacks. Now, if that doesn't get their attention, then we're in for trouble. I think they understood what we are up against."

On expectations and rankings:
"I remember the first year we were able to get into the top 20, and everyone made a big deal about it, but it really didn't concern me at all. I'm more interested in where we are at the end of the year as opposed to the beginning of the year. I can't really control what's happening early, but we do have a say with what happens at the end. If there is one thing that has come out of that (the rankings), I think it's that we are starting to earn respect nationally. I think that's important to me and it's important to the program."