Finding an optimistic Maryland football fan following the team's 7-6 come-from-behind win over FCS member William & Mary in the opener likely would have been more of an exercise in futility than locating a needle in a haystack or Elvis partying it up in South America.
There was no reason whatsoever to climb onto any kind of Terrapins' bandwagon because it didn't exist. The team's prospects had sunk so low it didn't even have a big wheel or one of those plastic ponies kids ride at the mall for 50 cents a pop to hop on.
But Randy Edsall's team pulled off the biggest surprise of the weekend in ACC play by beating Temple 36-27 on the road to start the season 2-0.
"They're excited," Edsall said after the game. "Any time you win you're going to be excited. It's hard to win and it's hard to win on the road. To come up here and to win and to go through what we did, to have the different emotions … They're not going to roll over and play dead. They're not going to be possums."
But are they going to be worth keeping an eye on?
Just a week earlier, the Terps barely escaped an FCS team that this past weekend lost to Lafayette, a program that doesn't hand out football scholarships. Maryland went 2-10 a year ago, including losing its final eight contests, which doesn't include a 38-7 September romp at home at the hands of the same Temple Owls.
In addition, 27 players have transferred with eligibility remaining since Edsall took over 20 months ago. Reports speculating he may not last beyond this, his second season, were aplenty, and fan interest had dropped so low that only 31,000 showed up for the opener.
Now at 2-0 with a win over a Temple team that blasted Villanova, 41-10, in its opener, Maryland has a chance to beat Edsall's former program, Connecticut, start 3-0 and make fools of just about every prognosticator going. Ironically, the Huskies are primarily loaded with players Edsall recruited.
He spent 12 years building UConn from I-AA (now FCS) status to a co-Big East champion in his final season. Those Huskies went to the Fiesta Bowl. Now they visit Byrd Stadium this weekend in what should be an emotional experience for the coach and a really big game for his team.
"Connecticut, the state of Connecticut and the University of Connecticut, is a really special place for me and my family from the standpoint that my daughter graduated from UConn and my son got all of his schooling in the state of Connecticut," Edsall said Tuesday.
So why did he leave?
"I was very proud of what we accomplished at UConn," he said. "When I say we, I mean the assistant coaches and all the players and the fans and everyone who played a part in it. It's one of those things when I came here – this is where I grew up. Watching games here, going to basketball camps here, and being a Baltimore fan my whole life with all those sports teams."
And a win over a team that is very good defensively – it starts seven seniors and has allowed UMass no points and 53 yards and N.C. State 10 points and 258 yards – would suggest that last weekend in Philadelphia wasn't an aberration; it's a sign of the tide changing some in College Park.
