TOO MUCH TORREY

As Terrapin football receiver Torrey Smith sped upfield in the fourth quarter, quarterback Danny O'Brien flung the ball up the middle and left it hanging in the air, trusting his teammate to do what he had done all game — score.

Smith did not disappoint, grabbing the pass as it flew overhead and sprinting to the end zone. He ended by dunking the ball over the crossbar in celebration of the 71-yard touchdown, the fourth scoring connection between the two against No. 21 N.C. State in their 38-31 victory Saturday.

"I always say, ‘Just throw it as far as you can, and I'll go get it,'" Smith said, laughing.

The touchdown provided the Terps' final score in the contest, putting them up by 21 points with 6:26 remaining. Though they allowed two straight Wolfpack touchdown drives late in the game, the Terps (8-4, 5-3 ACC) soon extinguished their visitors' hopes for victory and an Atlantic Division title in the final minute.

"We tried to make it as close as we could to keep our TV ratings up," coach Ralph Friedgen joked afterward. "But I thought you saw a heck of a performance tonight from Danny O'Brien and Torrey Smith."

The Terps honored their 16 seniors at Byrd Stadium before their final regular-season game, but it was the record-setting day for the junior Smith and redshirt freshman O'Brien that delivered the Terps the signature win they have sought all season. The victory is the Terps' first of the year against a top-25 team and their first against an ACC opponent with a winning record.

Smith's four touchdown receptions were a program record, and he ran circles around N.C. State's (8-4, 5-3) one-on-one coverage to finish with a career-high 224 yards.

"We feel like if it's a one-on-one with Torrey, he's a mismatch every time," O'Brien said.

During the game, Smith also broke team records for touchdown receptions in one season (12) and career all-purpose yards (5,183).

For his part, O'Brien racked up 417 passing yards, the most for a Terp quarterback since 1993. And with 21 touchdowns this season, he became one of just two quarterbacks in Terp history to throw more than 20 in a year.

A stagnant running game that ended with minus-nine yards forced the Terps to turn to their rookie play-caller to run a one-dimensional attack. The air attack didn't disappoint, and O'Brien finished 33-for-47 with four touchdowns and no interceptions in what Friedgen called "one of the better performances I've seen from a quarterback."

One play in particular stood out to the 10th-year coach. Facing second-and-goal from the 10-yard line in the third quarter, O'Brien scrambled to the left and spotted Smith a step ahead of two defenders. The right-handed quarterback reared back and threw a perfectly placed pass across his body to find Smith in the left corner of the end zone.

Had the ball gone a foot in either direction, Friedgen said, it would have ended as an interception or an incompletion.

"I'm there as a coach going, ‘Wow,'" Friedgen said. "I was like a fan. I was just excited. I was just like, ‘Whoa, that's big time right there.'"

Still, despite engineering a 38-3 run that started in the second quarter and stretched well into the fourth, O'Brien and his teammates weren't ready to relax.

"N.C. State, even though they faced a 21-point deficit, we still weren't really comfortable, just knowing that [quarterback] Russell Wilson and their team have a great offense and they can score at will," O'Brien said.

The Wolfpack quarterback's prowess was evident in the first two drives of the game, when it looked like Wilson, not O'Brien, would star. He led N.C. State to two straight touchdown drives on the team's first two possessions, putting the Wolfpack up 14-0 before the Terps started their run.

And even after the Terps took a three-touchdown lead and seemed to have gained all the momentum, Wilson managed to again direct his team to two more touchdowns on two straight possessions.

Up only one score, the Terps took the ball with 1:16 on the clock, knowing they needed a first down to run out the clock and clinch victory against their unrelenting opponents.

So, staring down a fourth-and-1 on N.C. State's 32-yard line, the Terps handed the ball to running back D.J. Adams. The short-yardage specialist pushed up the middle to the cusp of the first-down marker, but whether he broke through remained uncertain.

The referees spotted the ball and brought out the chains to measure as players circled. The verdict? The Terps got the first down by a nose — game over.

Through all the commotion, though, O'Brien said he knew what the result would be. After all, the day had gone the Terps' way so far. Why, he wondered, would it stop now?

"D.J. did a great job getting that yard," O'Brien said. "I felt like he did. I felt like the spot was a little shorter than I thought it was going to be, but we needed a yard and we got the yard. That's all you can say at the end of the day, and it feels great."

kyanchulis at umdbk dot com