Maryland will face former ACC foe Virginia Tech in the Pinstripe Bowl on Dec. 29, the schools announced Sunday afternoon. Maryland’s trip to Yankee Stadium marks the program’s first appearance in the postseason since 2016, and the Terrapins haven’t won a bowl game since 2010, just before the school fired coach Ralph Friedgen.
This Maryland team barely reached bowl eligibility after needing to beat Rutgers in the regular season finale to earn the critical sixth win. The Terps (6-6, 3-6 Big Ten) played at their best a week ago in Piscataway, N.J., on their way to a 40-16 victory. No players on the roster have played in a bowl game during their careers at Maryland.
“It’s great to have the natural rivalry of an ACC opponent that we used to compete against,” Coach Michael Locksley said Sunday evening. “I know our players are excited about it. … We’re going to use these next few weeks to do everything we can to prepare our team to win, while also developing our program.”
For Virginia Tech (6-6, 4-4 ACC), the bowl invite comes on the heels of Brent Pry being named the program’s next coach. J.C. Price will coach the Hokies in their bowl game. Price took over as the interim coach in mid-November following the departure of Justin Fuente after six seasons.
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Virginia Tech is making a bowl appearance for the 28th time in the past 29 years. Players voted to opt out of a bowl game last year because of weariness from coronavirus protocols, ending the longest active streak at the time.
The Terps and Hokies last met in 2013 when both schools were in the ACC, with Maryland escaping with a 27-24 overtime victory in Blacksburg, Va. The Terrapins lead the series 16-15.
Even though the Terps still struggle to keep up with top conference foes, this season’s 6-6 finish signifies an important step forward for this program under Locksley, the D.C. native in his third year at the helm. In Locksley’s first season, the Terps were 3-9, and during the pandemic-shortened campaign a year ago, Maryland went 2-3. If the Terps beat the Hokies later this month, they will match the school’s best record since 2010. Maryland also finished 7-6 in 2013 and 2014, with both of those seasons ending with a loss in a bowl game.
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Locksley has said that the upcoming bowl game represents the start of the 2022 season. The practices heading into this game should help the team develop. The next step, Locksley said, is for bowl appearances to become the norm and for the Terps to build on that expectation. Locksley expects his team to have between 12 and 14 practices, and so, “it almost becomes another spring practice for us,” he said.
“To me, that’s the beauty of being able to play in a bowl game — to develop the young players that maybe have not played a lot or played impactful roles into the season,” Locksley said.
Redshirt sophomore Taulia Tagovailoa, in his second season as Maryland’s starting quarterback, led the offense as it dealt with season-ending injuries to star wide receiver Dontay Demus Jr. and Jeshaun Jones, who moved into a starting role after Demus got hurt. Tagovailoa has thrown for a school-record 3,595 yards, with sophomore Rakim Jarrett (769 yards and five touchdowns) providing a boost as his top receiving option. Tagovailoa ended the regular season with a 68.4 completion percentage, 24 touchdowns and 11 interceptions.
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The defense also was hampered by injuries to key players, and the Terps gave up an average of 46.8 points in their six losses.
“We’ve been through so much as a team,” Tagovailoa said. “To make it to a bowl game, that’s what Coach Locks talks about — taking the next step. We want to be the team to do that. Not next year. Not the following year. We want to be the team to start that.”
Virginia Tech is coming off a cathartic victory over its most bitter rival and the introduction of Pry, the former defensive coordinator at Penn State.
Disenchantment in Blacksburg this season reached a fever pitch following a three-game losing streak, all at Lane Stadium no less, that left the Hokies facing long odds of becoming bowl eligible. With two games left in the regular season, Fuente and the school reached an agreement to part ways that included a buyout of $8.75 million.
Price took over for the remainder of the year and directed Virginia Tech to a 29-24 win against Virginia in the regular season finale to secure bowl eligibility. The former standout defensive lineman for the Hokies had begun this season as a first-year co-defensive line coach at his alma mater.
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One of Pry’s first moves was to keep Price on his staff as associate head coach/defensive line. The two have a long-standing relationship that goes back to Price’s senior year in 1995, when Pry served as a graduate assistant helping with the defensive line.
While Price and the current coaching staff were beginning preparations for the Pinstripe Bowl, Pry announced several additions to his staff Sunday, most notably Derek Jones, who served as associate head coach and co-defensive coordinator at Texas Tech the past two seasons.
Jones and Pry worked together on the defensive staff at Memphis in 2007, helping the Tigers earn a berth to the New Orleans Bowl. Jones has ties to the ACC as well: a 12-year run at Duke, where he was associate head coach in 2018 and 2019 under former coach David Cutcliffe.
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Pry also announced he has hired Shawn Quinn as an assistant. Quinn was the head coach at Savannah State and worked with Pry in 2010 at Georgia Southern, where Pry was the defensive coordinator. They were on the same staff too at Louisiana Lafayette from 2002 through 2006.
“I’m sure these guys will show up and want to play and really perform well, kind of as an audition to their new head coach,” Locksley said. “By no means are we going into this game feeling as though because of the change that they had, that that gives us an advantage.”
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