Maybe If They Were All Ranked

A cocksure Maryland booster predicted her team would win yesterday. When a fidgety, nervous school official asked why, the booster replied: "Because you guys always beat top 25 teams. It's the other teams we got to worry about."

They don't miss much here in College Park, where Ralph Friedgen's multiple-personality team drug No. 21 Wake Forest around the field in the kind of domineering fashion that makes Maryland's masses rightfully wonder why their team can't play beat-down football every week.

Following victories over California and Clemson, yesterday's win over Wake Forest brings Maryland's collection of upsets over nationally ranked teams to three. That's one more than the Terrapins' other defining category this season: No-They- Didn't Inexplicable Losses, which consist of a meltdown at Middle Tennessee the first week of September and a 31-0 humiliation two weeks ago by what had appeared to be an awful Virginia team.

"It's frustrating to say the least," junior quarterback Chris Turner said. "I wish there were something to make me understand why we beat the top 25 teams and lose to teams we shouldn't. I don't know why. We just have to go back to work and do what we did this week to get ready."

Indeed, before Turner and his teammates can daydream about a meaningful Thursday night ESPN encounter in Blacksburg on Nov. 6, there is North Carolina State at Byrd Stadium next Saturday. And considering N.C. State has not yet won an ACC game this season and Maryland will be a decided favorite, what Terps fan wouldn't be worried?

It's why Friedgen quipped of N.C. State, looking out into the media horde after his team's most complete and satisfying win of the season, "Any way you guys can vote them into the top 25?"

Like that booster, the coach hopes beyond hope that Maryland doesn't have to be embarrassed again before it realizes the possibilities that lay ahead, which even include improbable Bowl Championship Series possibilities.

Debbie Yow, Maryland's athletic director, had a Champs Sports Bowl patch stuck to her red blazer yesterday. She was paying homage to the bowl representatives who attended yesterday's game, the same people who invited the university and its fans to Orlando for their mid-level bowl game in December 2006.

Yet after the way the Terrapins smartly used the pass to set up the run against Wake Forest's stout line, the way Turner remembered a future first-round NFL draft pick was on his team -- connecting with Darrius Hayward-Bey 10 times after the junior wideout had not caught a pass in the previous two games -- it's pretty clear Maryland, which rolled up nearly 500 yards in total offense, has the weapons to contend for the conference title in a down year for the ACC.

It's also obvious the Terrapins can play lock-down, nails defense when they really apply themselves -- a swarming, menacing type of aggressive ball that just discombobulates a better-than-average quarterback such as Wake Forest's Riley Skinner.

So, really, with the Virginia debacle safely in the distance, shelve the idea of the Champs Sports Bowl for now. Why not think Peach, Gator or, heck, even the Orange Bowl? I mean, after N.C. State.

"They got to take some ownership in this," Friedgen said. "If they want to win a conference championship, they have to win all these games coming up."