All Out Blitz

From the field to the chess board: eight Maryland football players showed off their skills in an online chess tournament on March 13. Defensive back Chantz Harley was ultimately crowned the king of Terps’ chess. 

Harley, along with his teammates Billy Edwards Jr., Daniel Owens, Dante Trader Jr., Caleb Wheatland, Dillan Fontus, Deandre Duffus and Tayvon Nelson all duked it out on the virtual chess board for Chess.com’s newest edition of BlitzChamps. 

“I’m not going to lie, that’s probably one of the most intense chess games I’ve ever played,” Harley said. “But I’ll have bragging rights in the locker room for sure.”

BlitzChamps: Maryland was the chess website's fourth installment of its college football blitz chess competition. The series is aimed at popularizing the game among college football audiences. Michigan, Texas and Stanford football hosted the tournament previously. 

The three-hour tournament was livestreamed for all of Terp Nation to follow. The event was streamed on Chess.com/TV, Twitch and YouTube and amassed nearly 200,000 viewers across all three platforms.  

Head coach Michael Locksley, quarterback Taulia Tagovailoa and former Maryland and current Pittsburgh Steelers offensive lineman Spencer Anderson joined the stream at different points to talk Terps football and chess strategy. Each guest offered a healthy amount of trash talk. Tagovailoa demonstrated his robust chess knowledge while analyzing his former teammates’ moves with the commentators.

Harley won six games in a row and surged to the final match. He swept Wheatland in the semifinals to get there. He accomplished this despite starting on the back foot in the first match, down 2-0 against Nelson. 

Trader cruised in the first round against Fontus on the other side of the finals board. He later outlasted Owens in a tight semifinal match to punch his ticket to the finale. Owens, a defensive lineman, showed up to the match locked in wearing his shoulder pads. 

The offseason included sessions with chess tutors and lots of practice matches to prepare for the tournament for both finalists. The pair shared their mindsets before the big match.

“Just relax,” Trader said. “Relax so you see the board because when you let the nerves and pressure get to you, you can't see your moves ahead of time and you can’t understand what your opponent is trying to do to you.”

“I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous,” Harley said. “But I always bet on myself so I like my chances.”

Harley and Trader each grabbed a win before ending game three in a stalemate, knotting the score at 1.5-1.5 and setting up a winner-takes-all fourth round. It was anyone’s game. Even the Chess.com staffers lauded the players’ impressive over 60% accuracy ratings. 

But Trader made a rookie mistake by letting Harley march a pawn down to his side, which earned the little pawn all-powerful queen status. This pawn-turned-queen trapped Trader’s king for checkmate and secured Harley’s title.  

“Feels good, as expected,” Harley reflected. “It helped me really in that second to last game, we actually went over strategy. I sold the game with a stalemate, but we went over strategy on how to win literally last night.”

The tournament was all in good fun, as Jones-Hill House staff and players flocked to the site of the action and compared their bracket predictions. Trash talk between the eight competitors ran rampant, as was encouraged by the Chess.com staff. Some were even inspired to play real-life chess while watching the tournament. 

Edwards had a disappointing round-one exit after being taken down by Owens in a dramatic tiebreaker game. Edwards discussed his performance and future chess goals. 

“Looking to play more, definitely in a less stressful environment,” Edwards said. “There's a lot of trash-talking. The kitchen is hot. It was intense. It was a good learning experience. I definitely have more work to do to get back and level up my chess game, but I know what I have to work on now.”

Terp fans can rest assured knowing that their knights in black, red, gold, and white are spending the offseason putting their brains to work and refining their chess strategies as they prepare to light up the field next season.