SUNSHINE FOR TERPS

PISCATAWAY, N.J. - After another Terrapin meltdown, this time at the end of the first half, coach Ralph Friedgen went into the locker room Saturday at Rutgers Stadium with an unorthodox maneuver.

Friedgen usually meets with his coaches to make adjustments, but not on this day. Instead, the Terp football coach went straight to his players.

"What do you think, it's gonna be easy?" he told his team. "Wins don't come easily; you have to work for them. There's gonna come a time where it's that matter of will, who's more determined. We're gonna get the ball the second half; it's anybody's ballgame right now.

"So stop sulking and stop worrying what you just did, worry about what you're gonna go out and do."

The Terps responded in a dominating way. After blowing an 11-point lead in the final two minutes of the first half and seeing their quarterback go down with a concussion, the Terps came out and steamrolled No. 10 Rutgers in the second half en route to a 34-24 victory in front of 43,803 mostly-stunned fans.

It was Rutgers' first home loss since Nov. 5, 2005, and the Terps first road win over a top-10 team since Nov. 17, 1990, when they beat then-No. 8 Virginia.

"That type of feeling after that Wake Forest game, it wasn't a good feeling," said running back Keon Lattimore, who carried the ball 34 times for 124 yards and a touchdown. "We didn't want to let this one slip away from us, especially having a top-10 team where we want them."

Very few people gave the 18-point underdog Terps (3-2) a chance in this game, especially given the way last week's contest ended.

But Friedgen had his team ready, and it certainly wasn't intimidated by the Scarlet Knights - even after Steffy went down with what was announced as a slight concussion and injured shoulder. Steffy was drilled after delivering a pass, and replays showed it was a vicious helmet-to-helmet hit that should have been a penalty.

Backup quarterback Chris Turner, a redshirt sophomore, was 14-of-20 in the second half for 149 yards. He showed poise and confidence in the pocket and, most importantly, didn't turn the ball over.

"I was definitely nervous, I'm not going to lie," Turner said. "I definitely had butterflies, but once the game started moving on, that all went away. It was just real exciting and adrenaline took over. I did what I was coached to, nothing more, nothing less."

Turner played so well that it has opened up a quarterback competition heading into next week's game versus Georgia Tech. Yesterday, Friedgen said Steffy was questionable for next week's game due to the effects from his concussion.

"I'm gonna look at the tape and see," Friedgen said. "We'll play the best guys."

Lattimore and Lance Ball ran a combined 46 times for 214 yards and three touchdowns. The Terps had control of the ball for just short of 37 minutes, and Friedgen didn't get too conservative with his playcalls, as he admittedly has in other games this season.

"We knew we were bigger than them," Lattimore said. "After a while, running the ball like that, we knew they'd get tired. We just kept going right at them, and that's the type of football we play - Maryland's a smashmouth running team. And we wore them out, and when the fourth quarter came, I think it kinda showed."

From LaQuan Williams' incredible full-extension diving catch at the two-yard line to the defense twice forcing Rutgers into a four-and-out, the Terps persevered through an entertaining final quarter.

When Turner kneeled for the final time, it capped off a dramatic reversal of fortune for the Terps. One week after they suffered a monumental meltdown, they upset a top-10 team on the road.

Friedgen addressed his team in the locker room for longer than usual after the game, and it wasn't quite the same speech his gave his players at halftime, either.

"I told them, 'You've kind of run the gamut in two weeks, you've been as down as you could possibly be, you've been as high as you possibly could be. Now which do you like best? Are you going to be willing to work towards this?' That's the thing we have to do. We have a chance to be a very good football team, but it takes work, it takes effort and it takes focus, doing things the right way."

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