Maryland Football: Final report card for 2019 season

Overall defense grade: C+

Maryland’s defense was a huge disappointment this year given the impressive individual talent they had on the field, winding up ranked last in the conference.

After losing first-round safety Darnell Savage to the NFL, the defense still had impressive corner Antoine Brooks Jr, incoming four-star safety Nick Cross, young up-and-comer Ayinde Eley and big name transfer linebackers Shaq Smith from Clemson and Keandre Jones from Ohio State. To their credit, none of those players had terrible seasons and were, in fact, some of the biggest stars on the team. But the constant three-and-outs from the offense meant that the defense was always on the field, giving them little time to rest and providing opposing offenses plenty of time to dissect them.

The defense frequently looked unprepared and disorganized, which led to unit finishing 115th in points allowed per game (34.7) and 109th in yards allowed per game (449.2). Keep in mind there are currently 130 teams in FBS.

Defensive standout: 

Antoine Brooks Jr., S: Antoine Brooks Jr. has had a stellar career after a freshman year where he only appeared on special teams. He had a breakout sophomore season at nickel corner, which he followed up with a fantastic junior performance best remembered by his late interception against No. 23 Texas that sealed the upset.

For his senior year, he transitioned to safety and became the veteran leader the defense badly needed.  He led the Big Ten in solo tackles (69), which was also good for 11th in the country and ended the season with 8.5 tackles for loss, five passes broken up, one interception, and one quarterback hurry. He was named All-Big Ten Second-Team and looks to enter the NFL draft following a career at Maryland where he hustled his way up the ranks and became one of the best tacklers in the conference.

Defensive Line: C

Similar to the Terps’ offensive line, the defensive line suffered from lack of depth, experience, and size after the departures of Byron Cowart and Jesse Aniebonam. Just like the rest of the team, the defensive line feasted against lesser opponents and then struggled against conference foes, with the defense as a whole finishing second to last in the Big Ten in total sacks (21.0) on the season, but they drop to last in the Big Ten in total sacks against conference opponents (8.0).

The defensive linemen combined for nine sacks and four quarterback hurries all season, displaying the inability to put pressure on the offense which in turn allowed the secondary to get picked apart. The Terps have a lot of work to do in the trenches.

Linebackers: B+

Before the season started, the linebackers looked like it was going to be the weakest unit on the team. This did a complete 180 with the reinforcements from transfers Keandre Jones and Shaq Smith alongside the emergence of sophomore Ayinde Eley during the spring game.

During the season, Isaiah Davis and Chance Campbell also kicked it into high gear and made the linebacking unit the most productive tacklers on the team, clinching four of the top five in total tackles for the season. Keandre Jones was a monster, leading the team in sacks (7.0), tackles for loss (15.0), quarterback hurries (3.0) and fumbles forced (3.0). All told, the unit combined for 9.5 sacks, 203 solo tackles, three interceptions and 31.5 tackles for loss.

Secondary: C

Following the departure of the savage Mr. Savage and the unexpected summer season-ending injury of talented Antwaine Richardson, the secondary found itself thin and inexperienced with the exception of Brooks Jr. Highly touted true-freshman safety Nick Cross stepped up and played as well as could be expected. In fact, a whole host of true and redshirt freshman were thrown into the fire to see who came out unscathed. The result was a lot of blowouts and giving up the most passing yards per game in the conference (271.3), with the next closest team giving up 20 less yards per game (Penn State, surprisingly).

A secondary this young playing at this level is bound to get torched a lot, especially when the defensive line is giving opposing quarterbacks time to just relax in the pocket and the Terps’ offense spending as little time as possible with the ball. So really I guess the defensive backs should thank the rest of the team for all the extra reps that will pay off next season.

Kicker/Punter: C+

Boy oh boy did freshman punters Colton Spangler and Anthony Pecorella get a ton of experience punting this season. They did fine following up the endless three-and-outs. Kicker Joseph Petrino was only asked to kick five field goals all season and made two. So there’s that.

Kick/Punt Return: A

See Javon Leake catch. Watch Javon Leake run.