Terps D Prepares for Cal

There's no question the Maryland offense has been sputtering so far this season; the defense however has been doing a solid job for the most part. Yes they gave up 24 points to Middle Tennessee State, but as John pointed out in his game recap, when you look at the field position the Blue Raiders got on some of their possessions and the fact that the time of possession was almost 40-20, the Terps didn't do that bad.

Saturday though, the defense is going to face potentially it's biggest test of the season. Without going into too much depth (because the scouting report is coming tomorrow) Cal's offense is putting up 52 points and over 500 yards of offense per game coming into it's match up with the Terps.


I spoke with defensive backs Nolan Carroll and Antwine Perez this week about slowing down the Cal offense and both said it will start with the run game. Cal is posting nearly 300 yards on the ground after two games and that has allowed them to set up their passing game quite nicely.


Perez, the transfer from USC, will be seeing increased playing time this weekend with the injury to Tyrrell Skinner. He said is confident and from my time talking to him, he seemed quite poised for someone making their first big appearance on the national stage like he is. Perez also seems to be handling his additional media attention this week pretty well. As soon as it was announced that Skinner was hurt, Perez suddenly and expectedly, became the hot commodity with player availability. Seemingly every media outlet at practice yesterday wanted to talk to him about this week's game.

That's all for today, check back tomorrow for news and notes from the last practice of the week before Saturday.