Boston College at Maryland: 5 Big Questions with Terrapin Station

4.) Last year, the ACC watched as freshman quarterback Danny O’Brien had a stellar season; this year, he’s already been through a benching and looks like he’ll throw half as many touchdowns. What happened to him and the Maryland offense?

Terrapin Station: A new system happened to him. Danny’s still a great quarterback – he performed very well at the end of the Florida State game after C.J. Brown got hurt – but he’s an under center quarterback. In Crowton’s crazy spread system, O’Brien struggled, much more than anyone expected him to. Another thing is the problems at the wide receiver position. Maryland’s top three receivers (Torrey Smith, Adrian Cannon and LaQuan Williams) all left after last season, leaving the Terps with a whole ton of question marks on the other end. Kevin Dorsey had a good start but then got hurt, Quintin McCree was awful until the FSU game, Ronnie Tyler has had a bad year, and Matt Furstenburg has been good when the coaches have been willing to throw to him.

In general, the receivers have just let both O’Brien and Brown down. They repeatedly drop passes in the hands and in the numbers, and run wrong routes constantly. It’s just tough on any quarterback to deal with that, especially when you’re attempting to move into a new system.

He’s still got it – he showed that much against FSU (averaging ten yards per attempt) – but to some extent it’s up to the coaches to work with his abilities, instead of trying to force him into a more option-based system that he’s not comfortable with.