Indiana Hoosiers at Maryland Terrapins

HOWARD’S RUN: Hoosiers RB Jordan Howard has been magnificent when healthy, topping 140 yards in each of the first four games.

Another hard defeat, one suffered in even more bitter fashion, serves as bookend to the streak: The Hoosiers lost 48-41 in double overtime to visiting MI last week.

Two Big Ten schools face off against one another on Saturday when the Indiana Hoosiers travel to take on the Maryland Terrapins. “We had just scored, so I was over there talking and we were discussing what we were going to do for the next drive”.

“As an offense, and a team, we just got too relaxed”, Ross said.

Maryland fell to 0-5 under Locksley, who took over for fired Randy Edsall on October 11. Quarterback Perry Hills and the Terrapins are coming off a loss to MI State by a 24-7 finals core. His replacement, Caleb Rowe, completed 10 of 19 passes for 88 yards and a touchdown but did not leave the locker room for the second half.

“Caleb has a concussion”, interim coach Mike Locksley said.

Seldom-used Shane Cockerille played the final 30 minutes, going 11 for 22 for 82 yards. With Rowe out, IN focused on stopping the run. “When we joined the Big Ten, we knew there weren’t many easy games on our schedule, ” Locksley said. That might suggest the Terrapins should throw the ball, except they’re second-to-last in the conference with 149 yards passing per game.

“It’s different in the beginning of the game, when your first run is a negative yardage play or something like that”, he said.

There were reasons for hope as the Maryland football team approached its Senior Day November 21.

After the Hoosiers kicked a field goal on the opening possession, Ross busted through a hole in the middle of the line and took off on the longest run of his career.

Maryland expects the Hoosiers to give the ball to Howard, a 6-foot-1 and 230-pound transfer from Alabama-Birmingham, where he ran for 1,587 yards and 13 scores last season.

An IN turnover followed, and Rowe turned it onto a 14-yard touchdown pass to Malcolm Culmer for a 21-3 lead after roughly nine and a half minutes.

The Hoosiers didn’t blink. Sudfeld threw a 19-yard scoring pass to Paige on a third-and-goal, and a 59-yard toss to Andre Booker cut the gap to 21-17.

A healthy Howard showed against the Wolverines what OSU didn’t have to face for much of its victory last month in Bloomington, when the junior suffered his injury that caused him to miss the next two games. Maryland is winless in the Big Ten, but would own the tiebreaker over Rutgers with a victory on Saturday. With one game left as a Terp, Ross is 65 yards from moving into the school’s all-time top-five rushing list. It was a major momentum swing that produced an eight-play scoring drive that Sudfeld finished with a quarterback sneak from half a yard out. It was 30-21 at halftime, and Sudfeld’s fourth touchdown pass made it 44-28 early in the third quarter.

Quite by coincidence, IN coach Kevin Wilson drew up a scenario before the game that mirrored what actually happened.