The New Guy Talks Terps Football

Hello, earthlings! My name is Richard J. Abdill, but my friends, if I had any, would call me Rich. I'm the new About Town columnist. That means you'll get around two posts a day in this space, with any luck at all, about something at least peripherally related to College Park.

I haven't quite figured out what that means yet. I'm hoping we can crack the code together.

But today we're talking about Monday's football game. Did you watch the Maryland-Navy game? Did you GO to the Maryland-Navy game?

I am not at all qualified to say anything about anything when it comes to football. You won't find game analysis of any kind under my byline. But what you will find is a humble request for your game day experience. Where did you watch the game? Any good specials we should know about? Any inside info about something really juicy?

Everybody's going to have online discussions about the run/pass ratio and Navy's completion percentages. But we're going to talk about cheap fries and cold beer, or soda or orange juice or whatever it is you were drinking.

Really, I'm interested. We want to have some good discussions with this thing, and it starts with you. Welcome to About Town.

Now that we know each other a bit, I can tell you all about the friends I made watching the game.

I've found the best way to appreciate Maryland football (or do anything, really) is with piles of fried food and frosty beverages, which Cornerstone Grill and Loft was more than willing to sell me, at great personal cost. The bar was recently named one of the 50 best college bars in America and suspended their usual happy hour specials because of the game.

But I wasn't there to drink. I was there to interview all the pride-crazed Terps fans coming for miles around to scream and yell and cheer for the home team.

Well, there were a few fans, but not nearly as many as I expected. I might be used to NFL Sunday turnout, but there were plenty of empty seats in a place that's usually stuffed solid for big sporting events. And practically no one was left by the end of the game.

I seem to have thought it appropriate to take notes about when chop blocks were flagged and where big defensive plays happened, but nothing of actual interest happened until I made friends with the largest table of students still at the bar by the middle of the third quarter.

Why didn't you guys go to the game?, this intrepid reporter asked.

"Because you can't drive when you're drunk," said a nice student, though most of the group admitted they don't really go to the games even when the Terps are playing on campus.

A classy fellow identifying himself as Mike put it simply: "Our team's not that good, so we drink a lot of alcohol."

Mike pointed at my notebook and told me to "put that in there." So I put that in there. Seconds later, Navy broke a 53-yard run. So it goes.

Everything was laid-back and (relatively) quiet until a resourceful cameraman (or producer or something) found the daughter of Navy Head Coach Ken Niumatalolo in the stands, wearing a Navy jersey. Aw, adorable, you think, until you find out that she goes to the University of Maryland — and plays on the lacrosse team — and then it starts to taste like treason at certain tables. Mike's friend Sam said it was an easy fix: Just take her scholarship away.

Don't worry about him though, he cheered up a few minutes later. After a lovely goal-line stand in the closing seconds, [SPOILER ALERT!] the Terps beat the Midshipmen 17-14.

Sam was excited again. "We're halfway to our record from last year!"

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What topics do you want us to discuss in About Town? What did you do for the Maryland-Navy game? Let us know in the comments below, or email richard.abdill@gmail.com for your moment in the burning bright spotlight of micro-fame.

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Photo: Creative Commons from flickr user marabuchi