Terps' Franklin excited about picture coming into focus

Maryland offensive coordinator James Franklin isn't promising a new look for the Terrapins this season.

Well, beyond the personnel, anyway.

That's not to say there won't be changes for Maryland, which opens its season Monday against Navy at Baltimore's M&T Bank Stadium. Yet Franklin sees healthy running backs, a deeper receiving corps, a mobile quarterback and --- most importantly --- an older offensive line working in the team's favor.

"The funny thing is we could probably run the same offense that we ran last year --- and I know everyone's like 'Eek' --- but we could run the same offense we ran last year but with different personnel," Franklin said. "All the sudden, people are like 'Wow, this is an exciting new offense at Maryland.' No, you have a veteran offensive line and guys who are more confident in what they're doing. You've got the quarterbacks taking control."

Franklin, the program's head coach in waiting, is entering his third season.

The first year, he took over personnel that were perhaps not the best fit for the scheme he wished to run. Last season, an injury-riddled and inexperienced offensive line was the root cause of many problems.

"When you have issues that you're trying to hide, you can only hide them for so long," Franklin said. "People catch up to you. There's a fine line to it."

And so Maryland went 2-10, the inability to block one of several reasons for the Terps' demise.

Franklin, though, looks at the players he has to work with entering this year as an especially good development. Additions to the program are increasingly multidimensional --- be it in avoiding strictly dropback passers or large, plodding behemoths up front.

As a result, it's not so much that Franklin has settled in as the Terps' coordinator as much as he feels like the overall personnel at hand is a better fit for what he wants to do in the long term.

"Don't get me wrong," Franklin said. "Coaching is very, very important. Developing talent is very, very important. I'm not ever going to take that away [as] what an important part of the game that is. We all see that on every level. But on the same hand, talent acquisition is just as important.

"I feel so much more comfortable with our personnel and what they can do and how we're good. What I'm saying is, there's going to be some things different. It's not necessarily that the offense is different. It's the personnel that's going to allow us to be different."

Will everything look good immediately, or even this season? There's no guarantees.

But Franklin at least can see a picture of how the Terps will look in the years to come emerging a little more clearly.

"I'm excited, because I think the pieces of the puzzle are starting to come together now," Franklin said.

Comments

[BuddhaUMD]

I'm sure Franklin's well aware that if the offense does not produce this season, he'll be taking his offense to another school in 2011.

I hope we never see a shotgun QB sneak call again, although it certainly makes more sense with Robinson then it ever did the Turner.

[D1scourse]

Buddha ---

I believe you are correct on both counts