Reserves made impact in bowl win

BOISE, Idaho- When Terrapin football coach Ralph Friedgen addressed his team following dinner Monday night, he knew he needed to come up with something good.

After the 8th-year coach benched seven Terps, including four starters, because of curfew violations, he knew several reserves would have to adjust to expanded roles without much practice.

So Friedgen talked to his team about pulling together to battle through adversity, highlighting the case of former Terp defensive tackle Justin Duffie in the 2002 Peach Bowl.

The walk-on got the start against Tennessee after starter William Shime was sent home for missing a team function and helped the Terps to a surprising 30-3 win.

While key contributors such as starting running back Da'Rel Scott, wide receiver Danny Oquendo, and starting linebackers Moise Fokou and Trey Covington, waited for the chance to make an impact, the reserves answered the call.

Each of the benched players except Covington eventually saw the field, including Scott, who bounced back to earn team MVP honors with a 174-yard, two-touchdown second half. But the Terps depth put them in position to win on the blue Bronco Stadium turf.

"[The speech] must have woke up the back-ups," said senior linebacker Dave Philistin, a second-year starter and defensive leader.

Wide receivers Adrian Cannon and Ronnie Tyler, who both made their first starts of the season, scored first-half touchdowns. Running back Morgan Green, who had not carried the ball since Sept. 20 against Eastern Michigan, split series with true freshman Davin Meggett in Scott's absence and scored on a 53-yard touchdown run. Wide receiver Tony Logan put the Terps in good field position several times with good punt returns in place of Oquendo.

"[The suspensions] didn't change my mindset at all," said wide receiver Torrey Smith, who helped the cause with a kickoff return for a touchdown. "We have two other capable running backs, and our receiving corps is deep. When someone goes down, we really don't have to worry about it."

The defense got key contributions to keep the Wolfpack's heralded run defense in check for most of the game. Defensive end Jared Harrell adjusted to a new position to log major minutes at the LEO position with both Covington and reserve Derek Drummond out. Adrian Moten got the start in place of Fokou and recorded his first full sack of the season.

"You get prepared and put in a defense to stop what they do, and then some of these guys get suspended and now we've got to patch it all together and see how we can make it work," Friedgen said. "And it worked."

Friedgen, who initially favored sending the punished players home early, said most of the players were eligible to enter the game after the first quarter, but offensive coordinator James Franklin almost chose not to use Scott and Oquendo at all.

In the first half, the offense didn't seem to miss them, piling up 28 points as the Terps hit the half with a two-touchdown lead.

"I didn't know how coach was going to handle the situation," Philistin said. "If it started to get ugly I think he would've sent [the benched players] in, but everything was going good."

As the offense bogged down in the second half, Scott came in fresh to save the day, and Oquendo closed out the win and his career by recovering the Wolfpack's late onside kick.

While these late-game heroics caught the spotlight with Scott earning team MVP honors, the Terps' win would not have been possible without the early efforts of some unlikely Terps.

Taking a page from Friedgen's Peach Bowl tale, the Terps' turned a tough situation into an opportunity to showcase their depth and finish off the Wolfpack in a complete team effort.

"I wasn't too nervous," said linebacker Alex Wujciak, who led the Terps with 10 tackles. "We have a lot of guys who can play."

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