Luke Akers punted the ball high into the air as sophomore Braeden Wisloski prepared to receive. Wisloski looked up but he never seemed to get a beat on it. The ball flew over his head and landed at the Maryland 15 yard line. The Terrapin offense ran out on the field needing to mount a strong drive only down by a score in the fourth quarter.
The drive ended with a touchdown, just not for the Terps. Billy Edwards Jr. was sacked from his blindside and not anticipating the hit, the ball was jarred loose. Redshirt junior Aidan Hubbard recovered the fumble for the Wildcats and traveled all of two yards to the end zone to increase their advantage over the Terps.
Maryland couldn’t recover from the blunder losing to Northwestern, 37-10, Friday night.
“Our left guard totally missed the block,” said head coach Michael Locksley. “Obviously we prepare our quarterback. Things like that happen. I hate that it happened to Ike Bunyan. He’s competed well for us up front, but got beat cleanly.”
The Terps had a chance to quickly rectify the mistake on their following drive moving the ball into the redzone. Their drive stalled there due to three straight incompletions by Edwards returning the ball to Northwestern on downs. The Terps following drives ended with a fumble, interception, and turnover on downs.
Maryland struggled all night on both sides of the ball.
The Terps offense never got going despite amassing a total of 355 yards throughout the game. Edwards played well completing 55 percent of his passes for 296 yards, but he was sacked three times with two of them coming on third down.
Maryland’s run game was non-existent accumulating 59 yards against a Wildcat run defense that is 18th best in the nation.
The Terps defense struggled defending the deep pass without senior safety Dante Trader Jr. who missed the game due to injury. The Terrapin secondary allowed four passing plays of 25 yards or more throughout the game. Three of those plays came in the first half.
The Wildcats’ offense started the game just as the Terps did with a three and out, but after that first drive, the Wildcats found the holes in Maryland’s secondary.
Northwestern quarterback Jack Lausch threw for 132 yards in the first half completing six of his ten passing attempts. Lausch and the Wildcat offense took advantage of a defense that has a habit of allowing big plays tallying four of their own.
Each of the Wildcats touchdown drives were a direct result of a 40 yard passing play setting up the score.
The first 40 yard throw and catch came on the Wildcats’ second drive of the game. Lausch ran a play action concept that gave A.J. Henning time to run free across the middle of the field. The play set up Northwestern at the Maryland 14 yard line.
The second came on Northwestern’s third drive. Lausch connected with graduate wide receiver Bryce Kirtz down the Northwestern sideline securing a tough contested catch along the boundary to put the Wildcats just inside the redzone.
“Defensively speaking, we gave up a couple of big plays that shouldn’t have happened,” said senior linebacker Ruben Hyppolite II. “Plays we went over, you know, for two weeks in a row.”
The Wildcats offense finished the game with 283 total yards and their highest point total of the season. Lausch finished the game with over 200 passing yards and a completion percentage of 56 percent, leading a Wildcat passing offense that came in averaging just over 175 yards a game.
The Terps offense struggled to get anything going in the first quarter amassing only 30 yards of total offense — 16 of those coming on a pass to Octavian Smith Jr — in their two drives.
The offense improved in the second quarter scoring the Terps’ first points of the game with 3:22 remaining in the first half. Maryland’s third drive of the game featured ten pass plays which diverted from the Terps second drive where they ran the ball seven times for 17 total yards.
Edwards completed seven of those passing attempts for 73 yards. Three of those completions went to wide receiver Tai Felton all ending in first downs for the Terps. He finished with nine catches and 77 receiving yards.
Edwards capped off the 16-play, 90 yard scoring drive with a quarterback sneak that landed him in the endzone. The score cut into Northwestern’s 17-0 lead, sending the teams into the half with a score of 17-7.
The Terps offense went cold in the second half only managing to score a field goal. Maryland’s offense never found any footing despite winning the big play battle, 10-7, although Northwestern did accumulate more yards in its seven big plays than Maryland did in its ten.
“Definitely, that red area was just, you know, tough … where in the first half if you changed the outcome of two or three of those plays it’s a completely different ball game,” said Edwards. “That’s, you know, what Big Ten battles are going to be regardless of who you’re playing in the Big Ten.”
The Terps’ turnovers played a crucial role in the loss. Maryland fumbled the ball twice in this game each time it resulted in a Northwestern touchdown. The Terps lost the turnover battle for the second time this season after entering the game among the top three in turnover margin in the country.
Northwestern’s first conference win of the season cements Maryland as one of three teams in the Big Ten without a conference win this season.
Maryland will try to earn its first next Saturday when new conference foe USC travels to College Park.
