Effort in practice hasn't fallen off

There was a spark in Ralph Friedgen's eye throughout training camp this year. He had a young team with a boatload of question marks surrounding it. But they worked hard, had fun and showed their coach a lot of promise.

"He may have said some of those things in the past, but I just think there's a genuine affection now," Gloria Friedgen, Ralph's wife, said before the season. "He's always cared about all of his players ... but this team, their youthful confidence ... you definitely get an energy from this team."

Then, in the season's first game, a road trip to Berkeley, Calif., the Terps were blown out 52-13 by then-No. 12 California. Friedgen's tenor hardly changed. His team struggled with staying on assignments, open-field tackling and protecting the quarterback, but the effort remained.

Now, seven weeks in, the Terps (2-5, 1-2 ACC) are off to their worst start in Friedgen's nine-year tenure. They've fumbled away three games and been run over out of the gate in two others. The fan base is growing irritable. The players are frustrated. And the coaches are lost, trying to figure out what's going wrong.

Still, on the practice field, nothing has changed. There's still the smack-talking and overwhelming competitiveness. There's still the high level of play. There's just a few more fumble drills and a little less of what linebacker Adrian Moten once described as "bulljiving," or joking around. It's his team's practices, then, that have left Friedgen more frustrated with each Saturday's results than anything else.

That frustration leaked out in one of Friedgen's most spirited diatribes last weekend, immediately following his team's 20-9 loss to Virginia, in which the offense committed four turnovers.

"I'm amazed. I've been on other teams and been part of other teams that the season has gone a lot better, and yet you had to push them and drive them to get the effort out of them. This team hasn't been that way," Friedgen said, answering a question about quarterback Chris Turner. "I don't know, maybe it's because of their youth. I don't know.

But it's still fun to be out there on the field with them.

"And it would hurt me if that changed," he continued. "I know human nature, and it gets tough to keep going back to the well when you don't see the fruits of your labor. And this game was one that I think the kids wanted to win very badly. I don't question their effort one bit, on either side of the ball. It's just circumstances allow us to turn it over. And look, I think all of Virginia's points came on turnovers. I'm going to keep working. I'm going to hope they're going to keep working. That's all I'm going to say."

In their first day back out on the practice field, the Terps came out hitting Monday. Friedgen said he had to slow his players down for fear of injury.

He also made some structural changes to practice, at the players' request. Instead of traditional kicking drills, where the first-string kick coverage unit must make a timed field goal, moving back five yards after each successful attempt, punter and holder Travis Baltz suggested a more competitive method.

Friedgen brought the first- and second-string field goal units onto the field for a kicking challenge between starter Nick Ferrara and reserve Mike Barbour. As the kickers made field goal after field goal, the players' spirits began to flare up. Girlfriends were mentioned. And the coach got a few laughs and a whole lot of new gossip about his team.

"That's kind of why I like this group," Friedgen said. "Usually, [Mondays after a loss are] kind of a tough time for me. And they got into it, and it kind of picked me up. ... You're always talking about how coaches affect players. I think this time, you may be talking about players affecting coaches. They're really lifing us up."

Friedgen has made special efforts to curtail fumbling. He's brought in a ball with a long elastic band on it, to be pulled out of the hands of running backs. He's increased tumbling drills, where players are told to fall to the ground without losing the ball.

The defense, as well, is focusing more on stripping the ball during practice. And regardless of who wins those battles, there's sure to be plenty of smack-talking.

"We all a family," wide receiver LaQuan Williams said. "You feel like you arguing with your brother."

For Friedgen, perhaps that concept can be extended. The coach has compared players to his own sons — he has three daughters — in the past. Thus far this year, he's struggled watching those hard-working, capable children fail.

ajoseph@umdbk.com