– by Adesina O. Koiki
A Lot of Sports Talk editor-in-chief
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COLLEGE PARK, MARYLAND — Slow starts had been the norm in the past couple of home games for the University of Maryland football team, something it sure wanted to rectify in its last before before a true test of their bona fides one week from today. One play into today’s game, the Terrapins had the fast start they wanted, setting up another dominant performance from their offense and continuing a perfect start to a season that College Park hasn’t seen in over two decades.
Taulia Tagovailoa completed a 62-yard pass to Jeshaun Jones on the first play of the game before throwing three first-half touchdown passes to Tai Felton, as the Terrapins ran away and hid from Indiana in a 44-17 drubbing inside SECU Stadium on Saturday afternoon. The three scoring passes to Felton were half of Tagovailoa’s touchdown tally on the day, as he threw for a career-high five touchdown passes while also running in a score from 19 yards out late in the first quarter.
Maryland has won each of its games this season by at least 18 points, and it has now started 5-0 to a season for the first time since their Orange Bowl-winning campaign of 2001.
That sterling start will be put to the test next weekend, when the Terrapins travel to Columbus to take on No. 4 Ohio State next Saturday at noon.
“I couldn’t be prouder of this team. This is a really close-knit group that just plays,” Maryland head coach Mike Locksley said. “At the same time, this is still just the beginning. We still have some work to do. We’ve got a tremendous challenge coming up this week, which I know our guys are excited for. I thought today was probably the most complete game we played in all three phases. We started fast and finished strong. We played to our standard and if you play to your standard, you usually end up with the win. And today we were fortunate enough to be able to do that.”
*Editor’s note: Above the byline is the photo gallery from Saturday afternoon’s contest, with all photos taken by DC-area photographer Rodney Pierce. After clicking on the first photo to enlarge the picture, make sure to press the left and right arrow buttons to scroll through the rest of the pictures. There are 30 pictures in total.
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