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COLLEGE PARK, Md. – The University of Maryland football team entered the field before Saturday's game against Michigan State and sprinted to the opposite end. Then the players knelt around a large "79" painted floor behind an end zone.
It's a ritual that they have repeated before every home game this season. In June, Jordan McNair, a 19-year-old offensive lineman with number 79, died two weeks after his fall during a team training session.
But the rest of the past week was different: the conclusion of two separate investigations, one on the death of McNair and the other on the culture of the football program under coach D.J. Durkin; the reluctant decision made Tuesday by Wallace D. Loh, president of the university – under strong pressure from the Council of Regents – to reinstate Durkin after 80 days of administrative leave; and the almost universal condemnation by students, media and state legislators of this decision.
Next came the overthrow and dismissal of Durkin by Loh on Wednesday and the resignation of James T. Brady, chairman of the board, on Thursday.
Saturday, Maryland looked like a football team suffering under the weight of the previous week. It looked like a football team whose head coach had been reinstated, had led a day of training then had been sacked in less than 24 hours. It looked like a team whose players were forced to spend the week providing some justice to their deceased friend and teammate.
Michigan State scored on its first two orders of the match and went 10-0, before winning an easy 24-3 win. Maryland earned just 8 yards in the first quarter and 100 in the game. His outstanding player was batter Wade Lees, who averaged 45 yards on eight kicks. But as further evidence of the harshness of the program, he had been involved in a fight involving teammates after practice during the week that resulted in a call to the police.
Maryland's last chance to win Saturday was 11-3 in the fourth quarter, 17-3. Maryland's defensive lineman Byron Cowart intercepted Rocky Lombardi's pass and climbed to a touchdown, but just before the end zone the ball was cut off from his arms.
At the next match, Michigan State scored on an 80-yard run.
"We are playing one of the best programs in the country, certainly one of the best in our league, and we are so far away that we are at 17-10," said L & # 39, Maryland Acting Head Coach, Matt Canada, The Game
Canada is accused of the loss, repeatedly claiming that he needed to train better, and acknowledged that the week had been tough. "This week has been a difficult week," he said. "It's a fact, you all know it.
He did not want to comment on Maryland players about the week and none of them was made available to the media after their defeat.
The atmosphere on campus was reduced before the game, but that could have been because of the cold November wind blowing on College Park.
A few hundred students dutifully carried bags of beer cans to the hatchback of Greek life, and a few fans lined up at the entrance to the west gate two hours before the coup to send the bus to the Terrapins team. Aside from some vigorous applause directed against the interim head coach, nothing was indicative of anything other than a typical Maryland football match.
The Maryland stadium, with a capacity of 51,802 spectators, was two-thirds full – the team's regular attendance this season – and the small student section seemed to have evaporated when Maryland's offensive broke out. that the Spartans ran away with the match.
Many students in attendance supported Loh's decision to fire Durkin, if not the complicated process that led to it.
"The students generally agree that returning the coach was a good decision," said rookie Arno Babcock, 18. "Everyone loves President Loh. "
Babcock's friend Benjamin Horton, also a 18-year-old freshman, agrees. He hopes the in-depth review of Maryland's football program will ensure both the safety of its players and that of other college football players.
"It's a good wake-up call to show across the United States the culture that drives football practices and coaches and the way they treat their players," said Horton.
Allison Kinzer, a 23-year-old student, explained that Durkin's protests at the dismissal had warned of the protests on campus, and she wondered why he had been reinstated.
"They should never have hired her," she said. "If they would have kept it, it would be a disaster."
Maryland opened the season with an impressive win over no-then. 23 Texas, but as has been the norm since joining the Big Ten five years ago, the team struggled to play in conference. Saturday's loss brought the Maryland conference record to 3-3, with Ohio State and Penn State coming up for the game.
Maryland had one last victory in 2013, its last season in the Atlantic Coast Conference. Traditionally a basketball school, Maryland was a member of the bitter basketball club A.C.C. for 60 years.
Joining Big Ten, a football club, is partly responsible for the charge culture that led to McNair's death and the Board of Regents' reluctance to urge Loh to fire Durkin, despite a record 10-15 pedestrians in his first two seasons. .
The Big Ten recalls are almost as ubiquitous in the Maryland Stadium as the logo of Under Armor, the sportswear manufacturer founded by former student Kevin A. Plank. The conference logo is painted on the ground – just meters from two more McNair "79" reminders. And above the west gate, Big Ten flags fly just below those of the state of Maryland.
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