In Year No. 2, Brown’s defense finally flying for football

The Terrapin football team's adjustment to a pressure-heavy defensive scheme that almost never stops moving hasn't always been easy.

But even after a performance that had its share of both highlights and lowlights in Saturday's 26-20 loss at Miami, players said they have seen a steady improvement in play that's dovetailed with an increased level of comfort under second-year defensive coordinator Don Brown.

"Everybody knows what Coach Brown is looking for now," defensive end Drew Gloster said. "And I just feel like with this talent that we have, it was just easy for us to come together and gel into one unit and be a successful defense this season."

As a team, the Terps are holding opponents to more than 55 fewer yards per game than they did last year. Their 36th-ranked defense even ranks ahead of tradtitional powerhouses such as Virginia Tech and Penn State.

Even individually, though, Terp defenders are quick to note the contributions of unrecognized teammates.

In the second quarter Saturday, for instance, linebacker Alex Wujciak jumped in front of a pass by Miami quarterback Stephen Morris and rumbled 60 yards into the end zone for a touchdown.

Sure, the senior explained, he was in the right place at the right time to make the grab, but the turnover was far from a one-man play.

Safety Matt Robinson "threw the block on the running back to give me a pretty clear path into the end zone," Wujciak said. "And [Joe] Vellano, he just did a great job of standing in the lane of the quarterback. People try to go for the killer shots, but the fact that he just kind of took a shoulder and ran next to the quarterback to block him shows how aware he is."

Gloster joked that Wujciak needed the extra time to make it to the end zone; on a quick defense, the linebacker is one player not exactly known for his speed.

"That's my boy, but I always joke with him about that," Gloster said. "It's a great play, and I'm glad he made it, but we just tease him about how slow he looked running down the sideline and how he almost got caught at the 1.

"But that's OK, because the rest of us were there for him. We've got each others' backs."

The attacking style even showed up in a usually routine situation Saturday — during an extra-point opportunity. After Miami scored a second-quarter touchdown to pull within two, Vellano, a defensive linesman, blew through the Hurricane line to block the kick.

"Coach Brown, he lives and he dies by the blitz," Gloster said. "And we have a lot of fast guys on our defense, so when you have a fast defense, you can blitz a lot and still recover."

That didn't always happen Saturday, though. On the Hurricanes' final drive, the Terps allowed a 16-yard quarterback scramble on third-and-11, then had the game-winning 35-yard touchdown pass sail over their heads.

"We went with the pressure, a four-man rush," Brown said of the play. "We're in one of the better coverages for us, and we didn't execute."

kyanchulis@umdbk.com