Football Game Notes -- Terps at No. 5 West Virginia

Sept. 11, 2006

Quotes from Coach Friedgen's Press Conference

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THE GAME

The University of Maryland football team hits the road for the first time in 2006 and does so against long-standing regional rival West Virginia. Kickoff from Mountaineer Field at Milan Puskar Stadium is set for 7:47 p.m. The game will be televised nationally by ESPN and broadcast on the Terrapin Sports Radio Network (105.7 FM and 1300 AM Baltimore; 630 AM Washington, D.C.) with radio pregame starting at 6:15 p.m.

Maryland (2-0, 0-0 ACC) has started the season 2-0 for just the second time in Ralph Friedgen's six years. The Terrapins got their second win this past Saturday in a 24-10 victory over Middle Tennessee (1-1, 1-0 Sun Belt), taking advantage of three Blue Raider turnovers while playing near mistake-free football (the team's lone turnover came on a fumble of a Maryland interception return).

West Virginia also enters this week's game with a 2-0 mark, having impressively dispersed of Marshall (42-10) and Eastern Washington (52-3). This past weekend, the Mountaineers posted 594 yards of offense while yielding just 185 in the decisive victory.

West Virginia is ranked 5th in the latest Associated Press and USA Today polls. Maryland received eight votes in this week's USA Today Coaches' poll.

Maryland's last win against a Top 5 opponent came in 2004, a 20-17 victory at home against then-No. 5 Florida State. The Terrapins' last road win over a Top 5 opponent was October 7, 1950, a 34-7 victory at Michigan State (there have been 17 attempts since the win in 1950).

SERIES NOTES -- TERPS VS. MOUNTAINEERS

This year's meeting marks the 45th between the Terrapins and Mountaineers, a series which began in 1919. The series is currently deadlocked at 21-21-2 all-time.

Maryland and WVU have met every year since 1980. The last 17 games of the series show the Mountaineers a one-game favorite at 9-8, but the Terrapins have won four of the last six.

Ralph Friedgen and Rich Rodriguez each took the helm of their respective alma maters in 2001. Maryland is 4-2 against WVU in that time, with WVU winning the last two.

As the all-time record indicates, the series between the two Mid-Atlantic schools has been very evenly matched over the years. Maryland is 11-10-1 at Byrd Stadium and WVU is 11-9-1 at Mountaineer Field. The game that evens the series is Maryland's 41-7 neutral-site win in the 2004 Toyota Gator Bowl.

Last year marked the Mountaineers' first decisive victory in the series since 2001. The third quarter ended with the score 7-6 and two fourth quarter scores got the Terrapins to within 21-19 with 8:24 remaining, but the Mountaineers used a potent rushing attack (137 fourth-quarter rushing yards) to score the game's final 10 points and salt away a 31-19 win.

The 2005 Mountaineer win was the closest contest of the five meetings to date since 2001. In the previous three meetings, the Terps outscored WVU by a combined score of 123-31, an average of nearly 46-10 per game.

In Maryland's last win at West Virginia (2002), one current Terp surprisingly had a large hand in the victory. Then a true freshman, Josh Allen became the first Terp frosh to rush for over 100 yards in nearly five years as he led the team with 116 yards on 16 carries with a pair of touchdowns. His 70-yard first quarter touchdown was one of four in the first frame for the Terps in an eventual 48-17 route.

Only twice in the last 12 meetings between the Terrapins and the Mountaineers has the game's winner not scored at least 30 points (WVU, 13-0 in 1996 and 19-16 in OT in `05).

For a recap of last year's game at West Virginia, see the Opponent/Series Info page of this release.

QUICK HITS -- WEEK 2

Maryland scored its first touchdown against Middle Tennessee on a four-play, 39-yard drive that was set up by a 61-yard kickoff return by Josh Wilson on the game's opening kick. The drive was capped by a 12-yard touchdown run by Lance Ball.

Ball's 12-yard TD run put him over the 1,000-yard mark for his career. The junior now has 1,048 career rushing yards after recording 58 yards on 14 carries against the Blue Raiders.

With two rushing touchdowns against Middle Tennessee, Ball now has four rushing TDs in two games, just two shy of his total all of last year. He now has 10 rushing touchdowns for his career.

Dre Moore recorded two sacks in the game. The last time a terp posted two or more sacks in one contest was 2004 when Shawne Merriman had 2.5 against Wake Forest.

Maryland's second touchdown of the game -- keyed off a fourth-down sack by Wesley Jefferson and Conrad Bolston -- came on a nine-play, 61-yard drive culminating in a one-yard plunge by Sam Hollenbach, his first rushing TD of the season and third of his career.

Keon Lattimore racked up a career-high 89 yards on 13 carries, an average of 6.8 yards-per-rush. It included a career-high 34-yard burst on the second play of the third quarter.

Hollenbach finished 11-of-16 for 139 yards. In the win, Hollenbach became the 13th quarterback in school history to reach the 3,000-yard plateau, now sitting at 3,060.

SELECT COMPANY

Ralph Friedgen's 41 wins in his first five years as a head coach ranked tied for second in Atlantic Coast Conference history among coaches in their first five years. Just two games into the 2006 season, Friedgen is already working his way up the charts for sixth-year ACC coaches.

Though he was the top second-, third- and fourth-year coach in ACC history by wins, Friedgen's win total after last season fell short of the mark of 44 wins set by Clemson's Danny Ford from 1979-83. That mark, however, tied him for second with former Terrapin great Jerry Claiborne (1972-76) on the list of fifth-year mentors.

Friedgen will need 10 wins this season to match the six-year ACC mark of Ford (51-15-2), but his win against Middle the win total of NC State's Dick Sheridan (1986-91) and moving into the seventh position.

NEW OLD FACES

The loss of two experienced coordinators this past season left what would seem to have been a gap in experience on the Terrapin coaching staff. With Friedgen taking over at offensive coordinator and Chris Cosh on the defensive side, Maryland is far from green, however.

The Maryland staff (head coach and full time assistants), overall, possesses a combined total of 202 years of full-time experience at either the collegiate or pro levels.

That total includes seven coaches (Friedgen, Cosh, Brattan, Rychleski, Seamonson, Sollazzo and Zacharias) who have been at it for 20 years or more, and the 202 years means an average of over 20 years of experience per coach on the 2006 staff.

Only quarterbacks coach John Donovan (four years) has less than 10 years as a full-time assistant coach. Donovan's time around football is not quite so brief, however, as he spent four years at Georgia Tech as Friedgen's graduate assistant and four years with the Terps as an assistant recruiting coordinator.

BACK IN THE SADDLE

This season will be Ralph Friedgen's first coordinating the Maryland offense while also serving as head coach. Friedgen has not called offensive plays since leaving Georgia Tech in 2000.

In his last stint in college as a coordinator (1998-2000), Friedgen guided a Georgia Tech offense unit that averaged 36.7 points and 444 yards of total offense per game. During that span, the Yellow Jackets ran up a record of 27-8 (.771)

This run is Friedgen's second coordinating the Maryland offense as he served in the same role under head coach Bobby Ross from 1982-86. In his time with Ross at Maryland, Friedgen helped lead the Terps to three ACC Championships and was instrumental in the development of quarterbacks Boomer Esiason, Frank Reich and Stan Gelbaugh.

TOUGH ROAD

The Terrapins road back to a bowl game will be a challenging one as its schedule is one of the toughest in the nation this season. An initial look shows that the Terps play just four teams ranked in this week's Top 25, but a second look proves that a midseason stretch will be among the toughest in the nation.

This week, the Terps play at No. 5 West Virginia (both polls), the first of eight 2005 bowl teams on the Maryland slate.

Once Maryland gets through its non-conference slate, the team plays two road games (at Georgia Tech and at rival Virginia) to open its ACC season. It returns home for homecoming against NC State; then a matchup against perennial power Florida State; then goes on the road to Death Valley and Clemson before returning home for its first game against Miami since 1987. The season ends at Boston College and then back home for Wake Forest.

Players Mentioned

Lance Ball

Keon Lattimore

Dre Moore

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