Maryland coach Ralph Friedgen made another reference Thursday to the slogan he had placed on his team's t-shirts this season: The difference between good and great is great is consistently good.
Well, Maryland was good enough on Monday to defeat Navy. Not great --- it's tough to describe a team that yielded 400 yards rushing and managed 11 yards passing on its own with that term --- but the Terps were certainly better than a year ago.
But it's merely one game, and Maryland has a long way to go to completely fix the perception that exists about the program after a 2-10 season.
The next step comes Saturday against Morgan State.
"People saw how hard our kids played against a very good football team," Friedgen said. "I believe Navy will win another 10 games this year. Do you lose all of that by not going out and playing your best? That's where we are in the growth process. We have to go out and line up and play and show people what we're capable of. I believe this team is capable of good things, but they have to go out and do it. They can't rest. If we don't play well, everybody will say we're lucky. If we play well, they'll say 'Maybe you have a good team coming up.'"
That's a spot-on assessment, actually. The Terrapins will be measured, fairly or not, on whether they can handle Morgan State (1-0) with ease.
The Terps' last victory by a double-digit margin was a 26-0 rout of Wake Forest on Oct. 18, 2008. A total of 19 games have passed --- a remarkably long stretch even in context of the program's last quarter-century.
MOST CONSECUTIVE GAMES WITHOUT A 10+ POINT WIN, MARYLAND 1986-2010
19: Oct. 25, 2008-present
18: Oct. 26, 1996-Sept. 19, 1998
14: Sept. 14, 1991-Sept. 26, 1992
13: Sept. 4, 1993-Sept. 10, 1994
10: Oct. 9, 2004-Sept. 17, 2005
10: Sept. 14, 2006-Nov. 25, 2006
It's also Maryland's longest such streak since a 27-game stretch between Nov. 5, 1966 and Oct. 11, 1969.
Of course, any wins mean a lot to Maryland right now, as Friedgen noted when he ran down the goals Terps would take a step toward achieving if they defeat Morgan State.
"Their goal is to focus on the next game, and this is the next game," Friedgen said. "The second goal is to win a minimum of seven games. Well, this one counts. We want to win the Atlantic Division and the ACC championship. Go to a bowl game, which I think this has an impact on that, and hopefully finish in the top 25. This one has an impact on that. So out of the six goals we have, four of them are impacted by this game."
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