Face value

As an ever-growing sense of hopelessness continues to envelop the Terrapins football program, a long-ignored sense of frustration has begun to find its way into the team's locker room.

After falling to the cellar of the ACC's Atlantic Division with a fourth straight loss Saturday, the Terps now face the unenviable task of having to win their final four games to simply attain bowl eligibility. And for the first time this season, many of the players on hand afterward conceded that their struggles are starting to wear on the team's morale.

"A little bit," quarterback Danny O'Brien said when asked if the team was growing disheartened. "No one likes losing and it never gets easier and it sucks to lose consecutive games, but at the end of the day, the leaders of this team are going to have to really pull the guys up that are down, because when you lose, it just magnifies everything. Mistakes you make are that much bigger.

"We had really high expectations for this year, but we can't get caught now looking back on what could have been because we still have four games left."

O'Brien's desperate message is a far cry from the team's mindset less than two months ago. An impressive season-opening win over Miami had the team confident it could thrust itself into the national limelight during coach Randy Edsall's first season in College Park.

Now, they're left sitting at 2-6, wondering where all that promise has gone.

To be sure, they've had personnel issues, including season-ending injuries to two of the team's co-captains, linebacker Kenny Tate and guard Andrew Gonnella.

But the Terps never believed it would get this bad.

"Never in my mind," linebacker Darin Drakeford said, "and never in the team's mind."

Saturday's loss to the Eagles, who hadn't beaten an FBS team before coming to College Park, marked the team's second stunner of the season. That defeat, combined with a September throttling by Temple and four disappointing losses to ranked opponents, has the Terps' season in a tailspin.

But Edsall, for one, has remained resolute in the face of near-endless setbacks.

"I'm not going to get frustrated because I don't want the young men to be frustrated," Edsall said calmly after Saturday's loss. "I'm going to let them know the things we can do as a team. If we do those things we'll be okay. The frustration I have is figuring out what word I can use to help some of these things turn around. That's what I'm searching for. How can I deliver the message to help them get better at executing the things we need to execute?"

While Edsall continues to search for the right words, the Terps' season keeps slipping away. Should they win out and qualify for a bowl game, the Terps would at least give themselves something to build on as they move forward from a season that at this point seems all but lost.

But as players spoke somberly Saturday, it was hard to ignore the looming possibility that the Terps are on the path to repeating the humiliation of 2009's 2-10 campaign.

"The guys know our backs are against the wall and we've got to step up," safety Eric Franklin said. "We've got to win out this year if we're going to make it to a bowl game."

cwalsh@umdbk.com