Aug. 7, 2007

COLLEGE PARK, Md. - The University of Maryland football team faced temperatures in the upper 90s Tuesday afternoon, but battled through the heat to deliver a solid body of work on the second day of training camp.

"I actually thought it was a little hotter yesterday, than it was today," head coach Ralph Friedgen said. "But I gave the players a couple breaks and we had a decent practice. A lot of the younger kids were fumbling snaps, but I didn't see a lack of effort."

The team continued to install plays and work on individual position drills, as well as run the offensive and defensive squads against each other.

Quarterbacks Jordan Steffy and Josh Portis looked more comfortable in the season's second practice, their confidence and accuracy growing as camp continues. In Tuesday's session, the offensive coaches installed a series of plays heavy on movement by the quarterback, a move that plays to the strength of the two mobile signal-callers.

Overall, head coach Ralph Friedgen seemed to be pleased with the performance of the quarterbacks.

"I thought they all had brighter moments, than poor ones," Friedgen. "I thought Josh did some good things, made some good throws. We put the option in today and he did some good things on that."

Friedgen also saw some improvement from sophomore Chris Turner, saying "he did a couple better things than he did yesterday."

Steffy tossed an early interception, but was sharp after that.

On one impressive play in team drills, Steffy rolled out right, and rifled the ball on the run more than 40 yards down the field to a streaking Darrius Heyward-Bey, who easily burned his man for the score.

The quarterbacks also remained composed, even when facing heavy pressure. With LEO Trey Covington ripping around the right tackle, Portis calmly stepped up in the pocket out of harms way, and delivered a perfectly timed ball to tight end Joey Haynos, who gathered in the pass in the midst of three defenders for a 20-yard gain.

Steffy, who remains atop the depth chart, kept his poise on a screen play and delivered the ball to running back Lance Ball for a long gain. With the offensive linemen shedding their defenders to get into the open field and block for Ball, Steffy faced two defensive linemen barreling down on him at full speed. The junior simply lofted the ball over their heads to the waiting Ball, who turned upfield with blockers in front of him.

The defense had its moments in team drills as well, however. Senior defensive tackle Dre Moore was a disruptive force on the interior of the line, breaking up several running plays and batting down a Steffy pass with a beefy right hand.

Freshman Alex Wujciak, who is vying for the open middle linebacker job and may also see time at LEO, grabbed a tipped pass for the interception, and continued running towards the end zone even after the whistle had blown.

Outside of team sessions, the Terps worked through field goals and practiced blocking punts. In the latter drill, defenders raced in and attempted to knock the ball off the punter's foot and return it for a score.

The Terps will continue to practice only once a day this week, in what Friedgen termed "the acclimation period." After the first scrimmage of the season on Saturday, the team will pick up the pace with two practices every other day.

All practices and scrimmages remain closed to the public, while credentialed members of the media may attend the first five periods (approximately 30 minutes) of each workout, except scrimmages.

Wednesday's Practice Pushed Back: With temperatures expected to reach close to 100 degrees Wednesday, the Terps are moving practice later in the evening. Tomorrow's practice has been pushed back to 7:30 p.m. from its originally scheduled time of 4 p.m.

Young Wideouts Get a Look: The Terps have a full complement of wide receivers, featuring returning starters Heyward-Bey, a 2006 freshman All-American, and Isaiah Williams, as well as Danny Oquendo in the slot, but Friedgen would like to keep adding weapons to the unit. He singled out some of the true freshmen wideouts in his post-practice comments. According to Friedgen, "(Quinton) McCree did some good things today." He also likes the future of Torrey Smith, though he'll need some time to adjust to the position since he was a high school quarterback. Tony Logan is another first-year player who has a bright future. Friedgen is hoping the youngsters will be able to learn quickly from their mistakes in order to be added to the mix at wideout.