Before he left the field after Maryland’s 52-13 win over Howard on Saturday, senior running back Trey Edmunds made sure to find his father. Ferrell Edmunds is a legend in College Park, one of Maryland’s all-time-great tight ends and an iconic figure who has his face plastered on the wall alongside other all-Americans’ on the upper-deck walls high above Capital One Field.
But perhaps the elder Edmunds’s proudest moment inside this stadium came Saturday, when he watched his son score two touchdowns less than three minutes apart. Trey Edmunds muscled in a three-yard touchdown run with just under six minutes left in the first quarter and, on the ensuing possession, scooped up a blocked punt and ran it back 13 yards for another score.
It was memorable enough that he had scored in two different ways on the first day of his senior season, but for articulate as the younger Edmunds has proved to be, he almost struggled to find the words in describing what it meant to do it front of his father. Ferrell Edmunds served as an honorary captain Saturday, with the ceremonies occurring on the field between the two touchdowns.
“It was definitely special,” Trey Edmunds said. “This was his first game back since he left. Being that I was out there, being that I was able to wear a Maryland Terrapins jersey, it was definitely special on that part.”
Why We Love Sports: Former Terp All-American Ferrell Edmunds reacts to his son's first touchdown at Maryland! https://t.co/7ufwuV9Nxg
— Maryland Football (@TerpsFootball) September 3, 2016
Ferrell Edmunds had grown accustomed to watching his son at Virginia Tech over the past four years, a tenure that started so promising and ended unexpectedly. In 2013, Trey Edmunds had a memorable redshirt-freshman season in Blacksburg, rushing for 675 yards and 10 touchdowns. He was never the same after that, though, hobbling through injuries for much of the next two seasons before opting to transfer to his father’s alma mater last winter.
He elbowed his way into Maryland’s running back rotation over the spring and summer, and on Saturday Trey continued to show his value, pounding the ball between the tackles and finishing off his runs with authority. Edmunds is serving as sophomore Ty Johnson’s backup, but along with senior Kenneth Goins Jr., he is the most viable option in goal-line and short-yardage situations.
Edmunds finished with 48 yards on six carries against Howard, polishing off the performance with a hard-charging 11-yard run to begin the third quarter. That nudged him over 1,000 yards for his career, fusing together his frustrating time at Virginia Tech with his final chance at Maryland. He’s not the feature back he once was in 2013 — Maryland had six different players score rushing touchdowns Saturday and amassed 315 yards — but he’s carved out his place in both the backfield rotation and on special teams, where he was the beneficiary Saturday of Johnson’s blocked kick. That came just a few minutes after his father was honored on the field. They finally embraced each other after the game was over.
“We exchanged words, we hugged each other. It was kind of emotional,” Trey Edmunds said. “A good kind of emotional.”