Towson football drops season opener at Maryland, 38-6
By Jake Shindel, Deputy Sports Editor
The beginning of the Pete Shinnick era for Towson football (0-1) was rough.
Against FBS foe Maryland (1-0) on Saturday in College Park, the offense struggled to get anything going, and the secondary gave up multiple big plays to wide-open receivers. The result was a 38-6 win for the Terrapins.
After his first game as Towson’s head coach, Shinnick said he was proud of his team’s effort.
“Proud of our guys,” Shinnick said. “One of the things we challenged them on is we wanted to play a full, 60-minute game, and we wanted to come out and get after it from the beginning to the end. I thought we did that. Did not want to turn the ball over.”
Towson did not turn the ball over, something they could not do last year when they played at West Virginia. However, the offense failed to score a touchdown against an FBS opponent for the second straight year. Returner D’Ago Hunter’s 96-yard kickoff return last year at West Virginia was the team’s only touchdown in a 65-7 loss.
The defense gave up 283 passing yards, spearheaded by Maryland quarterback Taulia Tagovailoa’s 260 pass yards. The team added 166 yards on the ground.
On Maryland’s first drive of the game, Tagovailoa threw to a wide-open Corey Dyches for 44 yards and then had a clear path to the end zone on a 23-yard rush touchdown.
“We blew two coverages early on. I think guys getting settled in, seeing it, seeing really fast guys out there running around, getting the call, it was just two blown coverages.”
Towson’s D-line only recorded one sack in the game, but it got multiple pressures on Maryland’s O-line.
“I feel like we can build off of [the D-line]. I felt like that was going to be a strength coming in,” Shinnick said. “We play a lot of guys. We move them around quite a bit. We brought every linebacker. I think we brought one of our safeties at some point in time. Applying pressure was something we felt we had to do. We just gotta get home and finish it.”
Towson starting quarterback Nathan Kent went 0-4 passing in the first quarter but started to find momentum early in the second quarter. Kent threw for 20 yards on the Tigers’ first drive of the second quarter, which resulted in a field goal. He also started to run more, totaling 10 rushes for 41 yards in the game.
“Definitely started slow, but then got a little more comfortable as the game went on. Just with the playcalling, trusting in the coaches’ gameplan, trusting in my reads, things like that.”
Towson hosts Monmouth next Saturday at 6 p.m. Last season’s game was an offensive battle, with Towson cranking out a 52-48 win on the road.
Jake Shindel
Jake Shindel has been a member of The Towerlight since the fall of 2020. He has served as a writer, associate editor, Editor-in-Chief, Sports Editor, and now Deputy Sports Editor. He has also held internships with The Daily Record and Baltimore Fishbowl, as well as PressBox Online, the Baltimore Blast, and Towson Sports Network.
