Wednesday Evening Quarterback News and Notes~ Maryland Versus Virginia Saturday October 17, 2009 College Park, Maryland. The early Las Vegas line is UVA by either 3.4 or 4.
I sat down this morning and began looking at this weekends UVA game in not-so-lovely College Park, Maryland. Man, at least Blacksburg has some southern, small-town charm, and some great fishing nearby. College Park just has way too many guys from New Jersey and Long Island, NY wearing gold-chains and about 2 ounces of Drakar Noir cologne all the time while wearing a Tony Soprano Wife-Beater t-shirt. I took an informal poll this week, and not one of my friends has anything at all nice to say about Maryland fans. Except for Boomer Esiason, of course, whom I got to know pretty well while he was playing for the NY Jets, and I was living in Manhattan.
As I was perusing the Internet, some interesting facts came to my attention. First the UMD Terrapin facts: Torrey Smith from UMD is the only player in major college football to have at least 225 all-purpose yards in five games this season. A couple of other guys have 3, and no one has 4! Smith has over 100 yards receiving in two of the last four games for Maryland. Junior linebacker, Alex Wujciak ranks first in the nation in tackles-per-game with 10.3. Terrapin Senior Quarterback Chris Turner, who looks astonishingly like Napoleon Dynamite, is already ranked 4th all-time at Maryland with almost 6000 yards passing. Ralph Fridgen was the offensive-coordinator at Georgia Tech when they came into Charlottesville and knocked off the Hoos in 1990 on their way to a share of the National Championship. Maryland leads this series 20-11-2 in College Park. The Terrapins also lead the series all-time 41-30-2.
UVA has been play much better of late, and has won their last two games. Here are some Virginia facts going into the Maryland game: UVA has 9 Marylanders on their roster. In our last two games against the Terrapins, Virginia has rushed for 201 yards and 191 yards. Virginia has lost 15 consecutive games to Maryland when we rush for less than 100 yards, dating back to 1957. UVA’s defense is ranked 8th in the nation on third-down-conversions, only allowing our opponents to get the 1st down 28.57% of the time. UVA has won six straight games in October, going back to 2008, and have won 11 of 12 in October as well. The Hoos have not allowed their opponents to score a first quarter point since the William and Mary game.
It looks like Mikell Simpson will be cleared to play in this game. That call will be a last minute type of decision, though. I think the Hoos win this game 38-31. Look for the freshman receivers for Virginia to keep playing great and if Simpson plays, we all know what he can do there in College Park. What do y’all think? Can Virginia lay the woodshed beating on Maryland? If Virginia loses, will the boo-birds come out again next week against Georgia Tech?