With 5:39 left in the fourth quarter, the Duke football team had Maryland right where it wanted. Down 35-28, the Blue Devils took possession on the Maryland 46-yard line after a 25-yard punt by Terrapin Russell Edwards. The scene was set for another Duke come-from-behind win.
Only this time, the magic wasn't there. Duke managed to move the ball only seven yards on three plays. Then, on fourth-and-three, Spence Fischer's pass to Bill Khayat was tipped at the line of scrimmage. As the ball fell to the ground, so did Duke's hopes of winning. Maryland would march down the field and add another touchdown to clinch its 41-28 victory.
"We got ourselves a chance to win, or at least go down there and tie," Duke head coach Fred Goldsmith said. "I have to applaud Maryland, they did a good job of stopping us on that play.
"You ask your football team to bring it down to the end, and that's what we've had to do week in and week out over the last three games. We were able to bring it to that situation, and we couldn't quite get it done."
Everyone on the Duke sideline expected the third down play of the series--a handoff on the left side to Laymarr Marshall--to be enough to get the first down. But Terrapin linebacker Ratcliff Thomas made the play of the game for Maryland, pulling Marshall down and holding him to a one-yard gain.
"It's just a shame," Fischer said. "We played well. The game was down to the wire. It was ours to lose. I think we could have won this ballgame. I know we should have."
The Terrapins worked out of the run-and-shoot offense, a scheme they perfected throughout the night. Quarterback Brian Cummings led an all-out air attack, throwing for 299 yards on 19-for-27 passing. Cummings' main target on the night was senior Jermaine Lewis, who hauled in nine catches for 205 yards. Every time Maryland needed a big play, it was Cummings-to-Lewis.
Take for example a play early in the fourth quarter. The Terrapins held a 32-25 lead and we're facing a second-and-eight at their own 40-yard line. A stop by the Duke defense would have given the Blue Devils extra momentum for the rest of the game. Instead, Cummings found a wide-open Lewis on the left side of the field for a 30-yard gain to the Duke 28-yard line. Maryland went on to score a field goal and increase its lead to 10 points.
"The big play in the fourth quarter that got them out of the hole, that hurt us," Goldsmith said. "We had a hard time staying one-on-one with Lewis. He runs real fast and was hard to cover."
The Terrapins' passing game took the Blue Devil defense by surprise. Pregame film footage showed a Maryland team that was dedicated to running the ball. But that wasn't the case Saturday night.
"We were prepared for the one-back running game from the line of scrimmage," Goldsmith said. "They changed up their tendencies tremendously.
"Obviously, we knew that Cummings could throw the ball . . . but for him to be able to do the things he does, my hat is off to the guy. He's a heck of a football player. He gives them the arm, the passing game with Lewis and the rest of them. Then he gives them the deception out of the shotgun--fake the reverse, come back and run the reverse."
Goldsmith pointed out part of the Duke problem on defense was due to players playing new positions due to injuries. Both senior linebacker Billy Granville and senior noseguard Bernard Holsey sat out of the game due to injuries. But the Blue Devils weren't going to let their absence be an excuse for the poor play on defense.
"There were a couple mental mistakes early that caused some big plays," senior safety Ray Farmer said. "They did a good job of execution. We came into the game with our plan, and apparently it had some holes in it, and we made some mental errors and they made some plays."
One of the only times the defense was effective was the first quarter. On Maryland's first possession, linebacker Carlos Bagley caused Maryland's Geroy Simon to fumble. Linebacker John Zuanich recovered the ball at the Maryland 20-yard line. But Duke couldn't put the ball in the end zone, and had to settle for a 24-yard Tom Cochran field goal to take an early 3-0 lead.
While the defense was strong in the first quarter, the offense lacked concentration. Three penalties cost the Blue Devils three big-yard plays, including an early 42-yard sprint by Marshall. Another Marshall run, this one a 10-yard carry towards the end of the quarter was also called back.
"We were stopping ourselves," junior wide receiver Corey Thomas said. "I'm not taking anything away from the Maryland defense. But we had a lot of penalties, I had dropped passes. We were really shooting ourselves in the foot. We controlled our own destiny, and we let it slip away."
Duke's 3-0 lead didn't hold for long, as Cummings connected with Lewis for a 45-yard touchdown in the opening of the second quarter. On Maryland's next possession, Cummings nailed Lewis again, this time with a 44-yard pass that set up a Buddy Rodgers four-yard run to make it 14-3.
The Terrapins weren't done. Cummings went for the hat trick and threw a 49-yard touchdown pass, this time to wide receiver Bruce James, making the score 21-3. It looked as if the onslaught was on.
But the Blue Devils didn't give up. After James' score, Duke drove the ball 80 yards on eight plays, and the big play was a Fischer 29-yard connection to Matt DeOrio. Marshall ended the drive on a one-yard plunge for a touchdown to make it 21-10.
Duke then got a huge break on the ensuing kickoff, when Maryland's Chad Scott fumbled. Duke's Jason Ritz recovered the ball at the Maryland six-yard line, and two plays later Marshall scored on a two-yard run. A two-point conversion cut the Maryland lead to just three, and more importantly, Duke had the momentum going into the locker room.
"We were kind of shocked at the way they scored so fast," Fischer said. "But we never hung our heads. We kept fighting. We had the momentum in our favor."
Maryland regained the momentum in the third quarter, holding the Blue Devils scoreless, while opening up its lead to 14 points. Duke struck back with its own drive in the fourth, scoring on a one-yard Fischer run to cut the lead to seven at 32-25. But Duke never closed within more than seven for the rest of the night.
While Goldsmith was disappointed with the loss, he was impressed with the Blue Devils intensity throughout the entire contest.
"I thought our opening football game took a lot of intensity out of team," Goldsmith said. "I felt that the first time tonight our football team played with the kind of intensity that we expected.
"I told our team that I hope we use this as a catalyst. I hope that we use this to remember the intensity that we played with tonight, and let's find a way to win next week."
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