Maryland Football: Coaching change needed on offensive line
By Chris Bengel
On Saturday, the Maryland football program announced that they’ve hired Fordham’s Tyler Bowen as their new offensive line coach.
Bowen played football for the Terrapins for three years before being forced to give up playing due to injury. In addition, the former Rams offensive coordinator and offensive line coach served as a graduate assistant on Randy Edsall’s staff.
Dave Borbely served as the offensive line coach in 2016 and will remain with the program as a Special Assistant to the Head Coach.
The addition of Bowen to the Maryland staff may come as a bit of a surprise. However, it’s a change that was definitely needed.
One of the things that Edsall did do well during his tenure in College Park was build talent on the offensive line. The Terps were able to sign talented offensive linemen like Terrance Davis, Brendan Moore, and Damian Prince to name a few.
Despite all of that talent, Maryland allowed the most sacks (49) in the Big Ten. The Terps also surrendered 3.8 per contest, which is an absurd rate.
Entering the season, Maryland was thought to have one of the more underrated offensive line units in the conference. However, it was an area of constant concern as Terp quarterbacks didn’t have a chance to breathe on many offensive snaps.
Bowen is a young offensive line coach that just may be able to provide the change of pace that Maryland needs.
Fordham allowed 27 sacks, which ranked fourth in the Patriot League. In addition, the Rams were only three sacks from Lehigh, who finished second in sacks allowed in the league.
Bowen only spent two seasons at Fordham, but still had four of his linemen earn All-America and All-Patriot League honors during that time.
The potential is certainly there with Bowen as well as the motivation. Bowen is coming to a program that he is very familiar with and could be a huge addition to D.J. Durkin’s staff.
The move also speaks volume of Durkin’s ability to adapt. A unit of promise didn’t perform in 2016 and Durkin recognized that and made a change.
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Bowen will have nearly a full offseason to work with Maryland’s group, so it could be known early on how effective the former Maryland football graduate assistant truly is.