This one was ugly

The officials stopped the Terrapin football team's 34-13 loss to Rutgers on Saturday to review a play with 1:32 remaining.

The issue was whether wide receiver Adrian Cannon had just fumbled for the Terps' sixth turnover of the rain-soaked game.

As the head official conferred with the replay booth via headset, the Mighty Sound of Maryland launched into the Journey classic "Don't Stop Believin'."

The trouble was the Scarlet Knights had already outscored the Terps 17-0 in the quarter to take a 21-point lead. Quarterback Chris Turner and the Terp offense looked confused, tentative and lost. The defense had just been gashed for a pair of long touchdown runs. To the band's left, the student section had almost completely cleared out. And the rain continued to fall.

Even after Cannon was ruled down before the fumble, there was nothing left to believe in.

"I was pretty down," Turner said of the game's abysmal closing minutes. "This was a hard loss for me. It really just spiraled out of control in the fourth quarter."

The Terps lost for the third time this season, but this one was different. There was honor in getting smoked on the road by a highly ranked California squad firing on all cylinders. The last-second loss to Middle Tennessee was at least competitive and exciting down the stretch.

This three-touchdown loss to an unheralded Big East team was just ugly. With a lifeless fourth quarter that made a laughingstock out of a game they should have won, the Terps proved that for as bad as things have been, they may not have bottomed out yet.

Last season, the Terps showed a flair for winning ugly. In close wins against Delaware, Clemson and North Carolina, the team's knack for timely offense and key defensive stands shined through.

Saturday, the Terps muddled through three-and-a-half quarters of bad football. Helped by an improved defensive effort against a poor offensive team, the Terps found themselves in position to pull out a win.

Then, when the going got tough, they cracked.

Rutgers running back Joe Martinek ripped off a pair of long touchdown runs, leaving Terp fans to ponder what had just happened on their wet trips home.

"We just didn't finish," linebacker Alex Wujciak said. "Win or lose. We didn't hustle on [Martinek's 61-yard run for the game's final touchdown]. We didn't push through. That was probably the most disappointing part."

It's also an explanation for how the Terps could outgain the Scarlet Knights by 50 yards, not allow an offensive touchdown until late in the fourth quarter and still lose by 21.

For more than three quarters, the Scarlet Knights looked like the Terps' equal, an unspectacular team that will probably struggle to remain in the middle of a weak conference. But they separated themselves when it counted.

Wujciak didn't make excuses for the game's closing minutes. He said the defense didn't tire out. The linebacker, who recorded a career-high 17 tackles, said the late scores were "eating at him," minutes after the humiliating ending.

That's the kind of passion that will see the Terps through this troubled time.

"We were fighting and scratching and hung in there," coach Ralph Friedgen said. "If we got something going offensively, I think we would have won the football game."

On this day, that was a big "if." And with no running game and a still-suspect offensive line, it might continue to be. Or the defense might revert back to the porous form shown for most of the first three games.

With that said, winning ugly might be the Terps' best hope. But their ability to handle these late-game gut checks the last two weeks has hindered that.

Combine Saturday's performance with the team's inability to finish off Middle Tennessee the week before, and it's an unsettling trend. The young Terps can't afford any more late meltdowns. Otherwise, the team and its fans will have to suffer through more hopeless, ugly losses like this one.

Perhaps the Terp fans can turn to "Don't Stop Believin'" as the team tries to turn around a so-far dismal season.

Or more likely, the classic rock anthem will remain just a song blaring in a crowded bar as patrons try to forget about the team's continued poor play.

edetweiler@umdbk.com