Maryland Quarterback Malik Washington’s Season Shows Growth and Growing Pains

As a true freshman starting in the Big Ten, Maryland quarterback Malik Washington is going to suffer some growing pains. Everything is not going to be as easy as Washington makes it look sometimes.

No more DeMatha Catholic High and Calvert Hall and Concordia Prep on the schedule. That was last year when Washington was becoming one of the nation’s top quarterback recruits at Archbishop Spalding High in Severn, Md.

The Big Ten schedule is a bit more, uh, challenging.

Washington has been one of the top true freshman quarterbacks in the nation. He has instilled a feeling that the Terps (4-3, 1-3 in the Big Ten) have their franchise quarterback in place and with him, a growing potential for some uncommon college football glory in the DMV.

But first …

Washington, who is 6-foot-5 and 231 pounds, has energized the Terps’ program. His stats say so. So does an eye test. Maryland won four consecutive games to start the season.

Washington’s season numbers: 160-of-268 passes (59.7 percent) for 1,716 yards, 11 touchdowns and three interceptions.

He is not a finished product. No freshman is.

Revealing sequence of plays

There were two plays in the third quarter against UCLA at the Rose Bowl last Saturday, with Maryland down, 7-3, that showed Washington’s need for growth.

On the first play, on a second-and-goal from the UCLA 3-yard line, he had wide receiver Jalil Farooq open on a crossing pattern in the end zone. Washington delivered the ball slightly behind Farooq, allowing a defender to knock away the pass.

After a 1-yard completion, Maryland faced a fourth-and-goal from the 2. Washington tried a fade pattern to Dorian Fleming in the left corner of the end zone. The ball was underthrown and broken up by a defender.

In a game the Terrapins lost, 20-17, missing out on scoring opportunities was crushing. Against the Bruins, Washington completed 23-of-48 passes for 210 yards with one touchdown and one interception.

“We missed some easy throws,” Maryland coach Mike Locksley said after the UCLA game.

Maryland coach Mike Locksley will be trying to end the Terrapins' three-game losing streak on Nov. 1 against Indiana. | Jamie Sabau-Imagn Images

“And we had a couple of times with the ball, the receiver should settle and throw it behind or the receiver doesn’t make the catch. It's just out of sync and out of rhythm.

“What we’ve done earlier in the year to get Malik going, we’ll go back, evaluate those things. But I thought that for the most part what we’re seeing is not allowing us to get the explosives over the top and a young quarterback having to continue to find the rhythm and every play for us. We got to execute to our best of our ability.”

Growth … and growing pains.

Running the ball

Washington also gained a season-high 67 yards rushing on six attempts against UCLA. He was the Terps’ leading rusher.

Washington has been a reluctant runner, preferring to pass the ball rather than take off and scamper. For the season, he has run the ball 23 times for 112 yards and three touchdowns.

“This was probably by far the best I saw him,” Locksley said about Washington running the ball against UCLA.

“When he’s seeing the coverage drop, the toolbox he’s built is starting to grow to where he’s understanding it’s two-man, it’s cover two. Find my check-down or use my feet and I really like to see that growth. Just got to see it a little quicker.”

Adjusting to Big Ten defenses

Washington is learning as he goes after winning the starting job in training camp.

Big Ten defenses aren’t about training wheels and helping out a young guy. They are all business.

That business will get even more serious when Maryland comes off its bye week with its homecoming game Nov. 1 against undefeated Indiana, which is ranked No. 2 in the AP Top 25 Poll.

“It’s just helping me see the speed of it and how people are going to play,” Washington said about Big Ten defenses after the UCLA game.

“Of course they do their scouting job as well, so we’ve got to understand what we might bring going into it, but at the end of the day we have to stay with our rules and do what we know, and the result will be the result.”

UCLA held Maryland to 17 points. Coming into the game, the Terps were averaging 30 points per game.

“They played sound defensively, they communicated with one another and were able to kind of limit some of the stuff that we were able to do offensively with the explosives by playing over the top,” Washington said.

“Just making us take the underneath stuff and having to live with it and then trying to figure it out from there.”

According to Maryland’s sports information department, Washington was one of four Power 4 true freshmen with 200-plus passing yards in their first six career games.

His 1,506 passing yards through six games ranks third among true freshmen since 2019.

Growth … and growing pains.

Changing the Terps’ narrative

Maryland’s biggest issue this season isn’t Washington’s continued development. After starting the season 4-0, the Terps lost three consecutive games — all to Big Ten opponents — after leading in the fourth quarter.

The three losses were by a combined total of 10 points.

“Not at all,” Washington said when asked if he were concerned about the Terps’ disturbing trend.

Maryland quarterback Malik Washington looks for receiver vs. Nebraska. | Tommy Gilligan-Imagn Images

“I mean, we’ve been talking about it. Sometimes that’s just the [way the] game goes. We’ve been fighting our butts off. We kept it close, last three games losing by [a combined] 10 points.”

Against UCLA, Washington and Maryland drove 75 yards in nine plays in the final two minutes to score a touchdown and tie the score at 17.

But UCLA drove 68 yards in five plays, in 38 seconds, to kick the winning field goal on the final play of the game.

“Sometimes you just get a little unlucky with it, but we have to finish games of course,” Washington said

“Those drives that we have to put together as an offense when the defense is out there doing their thing, we’ve got to figure out a way to put it all together.

“The past two weeks we couldn’t get that last drive — this week we got it, but we needed something earlier in the game. Just things that we’re going to keep adding to our toolbox for later down the road.”

Growth … and growing pains.

For Washington and for the Terrapins, too.

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