Post by cviller on Sept 11, 2007 9:04:08 GMT -5
By Jack Bogaczyk
Daily Mail Sports Editor
GARDENERS and landscapers should really appreciate the West Virginia-Maryland football series.
It's been a hardy perennial - at least until after Thursday night's 46th game of a taut series at (Not Robert C.) Byrd Stadium.
After playing 29 times in 28 seasons (a 2003 Maryland romp in the Gator Bowl brought an extra date to the 2003 season), the Mountaineers and Terrapins will take a two-year break from a rivalry that has been played every year since 1980.
Most of the recent games have aired on national cable TV (Thursday's is an ESPN game), and for good reason. It may not be Ohio State-Michigan, but it's been very competitive and played before sellout crowds.
(As an aside, what would be worth growing is a WVU-Maryland basketball series. Gary Williams vs. Bob Huggins. You think that would sell out?)
It's well chronicled that the Terps asked for a two-year hiatus in order to squeeze in a home-and-home with Cal in 2008 and '09, and that the series will resume in 2010 at Mountaineer Field before one more game at College Park, Md. The contract ends there.
Ed Pastilong, WVU's athletic director, and his deputy, Mike Parsons, have been on the record about hoping the series will continue on an annual basis in 2012. There have been preliminary talks in that regard.
WVU Coach Rich Rodriguez sees no reason to punt a series WVU leads 22-21-2.
"It's been a nice rivalry ever since the early 1980s," Rodriguez said. "I remember when I was playing it was always intense and there was always a lot at stake.
"It seemed like it was always a sellout crowd at their place or our place. It's going to be gone for a couple of years, but I know it'll be intense when we play again."
On Monday, Maryland AD Debbie Yow said discussions with WVU "occur every once in a while," a remark that echoed those recently by Pastilong and Parsons.
"We have spoken off an on," Parsons said. "Ed talked to (Yow) about it and then I've spoken with her more recently. It's certainly our desire to continue playing Maryland every year."
Yow doesn't expect the series to end in 2011.
"You probably know the series takes a break so we could play Cal and we appreciated West Virginia working with us on that," Yow said. "We play in '10 and '11, and so the next game we'd need to do is in 2012. That's five years from now.
"We'll talk some more, I'm sure, and I'm just assuming that it's the kind of thing we'll get done after the year (football season) is over. This is one of those series where every once in a while, you re-up. I'm assuming this won't be any different."
Besides Cal and eight Atlantic Coast Conference games, the Terps play Middle Tennessee State, Eastern Michigan and another neighbor -- I-AA Delaware -- in 2008. In '09, Rutgers and James Madison replace EMU and the Blue Hens.
There has been plenty of interest in a potential Maryland-Navy series in the Washington-Baltimore area, too. To date, Maryland's non-conference schedules for 2012 and 2013 include Connecticut and Temple.
WVU's only scheduled 2012 games are at home against Florida State and Marshall. The lone game set beyond that is the Mountaineers' return game at FSU is 2013.
Yow said there's no urgency to get a new WVU-Maryland contract done, since the Terps are still working on filling holes in their 2010 schedule.
"That's three years away (2010), and that's our focus right now," Yow said. "2012 is five years away, so we have time, and we need to focus on sooner than later (the 2010 schedule has WVU and Florida International and two holes)."
Parsons said Yow has explained the same more immediate scheduling concerns to WVU officials, too.
"Right now, as far as playing West Virginia is concerned," yow said, "nothing has changed at Maryland. We're still very interested."
That's good to know. This perennial series has been better than Maryland's state flower -- a Black-Eyed Susan -- in bloom.