With a season that featured many ups and downs for the Maryland Terps, Head Coach Ralph Friedgen may have gotten the holiday wish he was looking for, great defense and plenty of offense to silencing the Purdue Boilermakers, 24-7.
The Terps who defeated some of the big names in the ACC, just did not have enough at the end of the season to make it to the ACC Championship, but settled for a invitation to the Champs Sports Bowl and they looked like the team that should have very well have been making the trip to Miami instead of Orlando.
"I'm really proud of them," Maryland Coach Ralph Friedgen said of his players. "People have been down on them, and they kept hanging in there and kept working."
Sam Hollenbach, who closed out his career at Maryland by throwing for 223 yards on 15-of-24 passing was named the game's most valuable player. He threw two touchdown passes, one to tight end Joey Haynos and another to redshirt freshman Darrius Heyward-Bey, on a perfectly delivered 46-yard strike to make 21-0 late in the first half to bury Perdue in a deep hole they could not find their way out of.
Purdue's lone highlight came when Purdue quarterback Curtis Painter( 23 of 36 attempts for 264 yards) drove the offense down the field for their only score right before the half giving the team some second half life.
Maryland's stumble before the half did not allow the chance the Boilermakers thought they had, as the defense unhooked the little bit of life support they had buried their attempt for any second half comeback.
"Our kids went out and just did a heck of a job executing," said Friedgen, who called the performance the most complete of the season. "We got pressure with a four-man rush, and sometimes with a two-man rush."
