As running back Ty Johnson worked through a drill at practice Tuesday clutching a football covered with a purple cloth, one well-placed punch from an assistant coach jostled the ball loose.
It’s a drill Maryland football has used throughout training camp and into the regular season, forcing the team’s ball carriers to keep the ball secure with mock-defenders trying to dislodge it.
The drill has proven particularly useful given the wet conditions the Terps endured in their first two games, and it could be key for this weekend’s home opener against Temple.
[Read more: Despite Jake Funk’s broken hand, Maryland football still has options at running back]
After rain belted down at FedEx Field and in Bowling Green, Ohio, Maryland is primed for another wet game in its final nonconference matchup, with Hurricane Florence bearing down on the mid-Atlantic region.
Interim head coach Matt Canada said he has to remain flexible in his gameplan due to the weather. So while Canada’s not planning on running the ball as often as he did against the Falcons, that may be the outcome.
“We’re going to try to call the plays that work as much as we can, contrary to what people might think,” Canada said. “We’re just going to go out and whatever happens on Saturday we’ll play, and we’re excited for it.”
Shortly after Canada became offensive coordinator at Northern Illinois, then-coach Joe Novak called him into his office.
“You offensive guys,” Canada recalled Novak saying, “sometimes the plays work and you change them because you think you have to call all the plays on your sheet. If a play works, keep calling it.”
[Read more: ‘Ready for more’: Jesse Aniebonam has come back strong from last year’s ankle injury]
Now 46 and calling plays as he toes the line between offensive coordinator and head coach, Canada continues to look back on Novak’s advice.
Last week, in rainy and relative cold conditions in Northwest Ohio, Canada called 53 runs and just 16 passes. Quarterback Kasim Hill completed half of the throws, unable to find a rhythm deep down field.
The smorgasboard of running backs Canada has at his disposal, though, kept finding holes against a defense that ranked fourth-worst in the FBS against the run last year. The Terps ran for 444 yards — the most Maryland has produced since 1999.
“The odds of something [going wrong] when you’re handing the ball off in the rain are much less than if you’re going to drop back and throw a pass,” Canada said. “We were going to keep running the ball until they stopped it, and if they would’ve stopped it then obviously we would’ve gone to the next play.”
The Terps rarely needed to take to the air. With time expiring in the first half Saturday, Hill misfired on four of his five pass attempts and Maryland settled for a field goal. From then on, the Terps employed not only a run-first offense, but also a nearly run-only one.
With Florence appearing set for landfall in the Carolinas, North Carolina and North Carolina State have already postponed their games this weekend. College Park seems to be far enough north to miss the brunt of the storm, but rain could descend on Maryland Stadium throughout the week and linger for the matchup with Temple.
Rather than making major adjustments before the game, the Terps figure to make in-game adjustments as needed, similar to last week’s shift against Bowling Green.
“It’s the mid-Atlantic. You’re going to have a bunch of crazy weather,” Hill said. “You’ve just got to stick to your game plan, what the coaches give us and just go out and try to execute it.”
