Maryland finally had the kind of Saturday it has been chasing for months.
The Terps ended a 13-game conference losing streak with a 34-29 win over Purdue, giving interim coach Aazaar Abdul-Rahim his first victory at the helm and pushing Maryland to its third win of the 2026 season. It was the sort of result the program badly needed after a rough stretch that had gone just about every wrong way imaginable.
And this one wasn’t built on one lucky bounce. Maryland won with a few clear statistical swings that told the story of the game.
The biggest one came from the defensive front, which looked nothing like the group that had been getting knocked around in Big Ten play. Maryland piled up a program-record 13 tackles for loss in a conference game, along with seven sacks, the most by a Maryland team since 2020.
Freshman Zion Elee was everywhere, finishing with 2.5 sacks and setting another Maryland Big Ten record for a single player. Sidney Stewart added a sack to close the game, Nahsir Taylor chipped in with 2.5 tackles for loss, Trey Reddick had two tackles for loss, and DD Holmes also got home for a sack.
The pressure wasn’t limited to the edge rushers, either. CJ Smith and Lavain Scruggs each added sacks from the second level, and the front kept Purdue’s offense under stress all afternoon.
Purdue did hit a few runs here and there, but its lead back, Fame Ijeboi, managed only 1.7 yards per carry. For a defense that had spent much of conference play looking like it couldn’t win at the line of scrimmage, this was a major turn.
On offense, Chris Durr Jr. kept doing what he’s done all season. He posted his fifth 100-yard game of the year and delivered the play of the day with an 87-yard touchdown catch in the fourth quarter. It started as a screen behind the line of scrimmage, then turned into a full-on escape act as Durr made Purdue defenders miss again and again before racing down the right sideline.
That score was Maryland’s longest receiving touchdown in 10 years, since DJ Moore’s 92-yard touchdown against Nebraska in 2016. Durr now has 62 receptions, which already ties him for eighth on Maryland’s single-season receptions list with three games left. His future will be worth watching this offseason, along with his connection with Malik Washington.
The other major shift came after halftime, where Maryland had been stuck in neutral for most of Big Ten play. Entering Saturday, the Terps had scored only 23 second-half points across five conference games, including scoreless stretches against UCLA and Nebraska, six points against Ohio State, seven against Rutgers, and 10 against Illinois.
That changed in a big way against Purdue. Maryland scored 27 second-half points, more than doubling its conference total in one afternoon.
The third quarter was the difference, with 21 points that came in a hurry. Na’eem Abdul-Rahim opened the burst with a 44-yard touchdown on a deep crossing route.
Then Lavain Scruggs forced a fumble on a sack, and Maryland cashed in with Washington’s second rushing touchdown of the day. Later, after Purdue trimmed the margin to one score, Dejuan Williams answered with a 75-yard touchdown on the first play of the drive.
Durr’s long touchdown followed in the fourth quarter, and Washington later hit Gladding on a deep third-down play to help close it out.
There were still rough edges. Penalties continued to be a problem, and the Terps also had some costly drops. But on a day when Maryland’s stars delivered and the offense stayed alive late, the result finally matched the effort.
Next up is Wisconsin in College Park, where Maryland will have a chance to win its first Big Ten game at SECU Stadium since beating USC in October of 2024.
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The shooting numbers were the clearest warning sign. Maryland went cold from the perimeter while Georgetown kept answering from deep, and the gap showed up in the flow of the game as the Terps leaned harder on Pharrell Payne inside. He gave Maryland a much-needed lift with his work around the basket and on the offensive glass, but the comeback never fully materialized, leaving Williams with an offseason-to-inseason reminder that the margin for error may be thin if the outside shot doesnt come around. [Read more 🡒]