Right pieces, wrong plan?

For yet another week, the starting quarterback for the Terrapins football team is in question. When Boston College rolls into town for tomorrow's matchup, we still won't know who will be under center: the passer, Danny O'Brien, or the scrambler, C.J. Brown.

All right, more quarterback controversy! Just what a team in turmoil needs. As much fun as it is to try and squeeze an answer out of coach Randy Edsall every week, the quarterback position isn't the biggest question surrounding this team.

The bigger cloud hovering over this team is, Just what exactly are the Terps trying to do on offense? When Edsall was hired, fans expected a pro-style, grind-it-out offensive attack. That's what he did at Connecticut, and the pieces were in place here with a pocket-passer quarterback, a stable of physical running backs and an experienced offensive line.

But Edsall diverted from his previous styles to hire Gary Crowton as offensive coordinator, an acolyte of the spread offense, in a move that looks more and more questionable by the week.

Even though the offense looked stellar on the season's opening night, a sobering truth surfaced in the weeks following: The Terps don't really have the personnel for Crowton's type of offense. The offensive line isn't athletic enough. The receivers aren't fast enough. The best quarterback on the roster is a pocket passer.

Yes, Brown is a good fit for the spread. He's fast enough to make plays with his legs. But he wasn't supposed to be this team's quarterback; O'Brien was. Edsall knew this when he took the job, and still tried to stick him in an offense that wasn't conducive to success.

Not only does it seem like a mismatch from a personnel standpoint, but the play calling has been highly questionable, too. We've seen long throws in situations that call for runs, draws on third and long, back-shoulder fades at the goal line and screen passes. Oh, the screen passes. The only thing the Terps have more of than uniform combinations are screen passes.

But the screen passes aren't working. And neither is the offense.

Even so, Edsall isn't pointing any fingers at Crowton.

"Gary Crowton is a good coordinator. And Gary Crowton is very capable of doing a job. And I think if you look at his resume, it proves that out," Edsall said. "Gary Crowton is doing a good job and is going to continue to do a good job."

Crowton has a checkered past, featuring stops at several major college programs and even a job in the NFL. He coached highly ranked offenses at BYU, and he even won a national championship with LSU in 2007. But fans have been happy to see him leave at most of those spots after offensive issues.

It would be great to talk to Crowton himself about the offense, ask him what he's trying to do, what he sees in the two quarterbacks and evaluate the year.

But he's been off limits to the media since the summer, which isn't helping matters. And asking Edsall for information on the offense is like trying to get missile codes from a CIA agent.

After all, as Edsall has pointed out, he's not calling the plays. Crowton is.

"I like our scheme. I like what we're doing. And it's only going to get better. And again, I think the biggest thing is that there's just been inconsistency," Edsall said. "I mean, take a look at the Miami game. Take a look at the Clemson, you take a look at the second half of West Virginia.

"That's the thing. You see progress. Is it as much progress as I would have liked to see so far? No, there's been too much inconsistency. And that's my job, to figure out and keep working on handling those inconsistencies."

Some have speculated that Crowton's offense is simply too complicated for the college game. There's no questioning the success he's had in the past, and even at times this year. But it's fair to wonder how much of the offensive struggles fall at his feet.

Even if Crowton is a fine offensive coordinator, his style simply doesn't fit here. Not yet, anyway. Maybe in a few years, the team will have the type of players needed to run a spread offense.

But they don't now, and maybe that should have been considered before he was brought to College Park.

schneider@umdbk.com