It looks like the Maryland Terrapins football team is about to take one more, much larger hit to their program. Offensive lineman Mike Madaras has opted to leave the program, as first reported by TerrapinTimes.com.
#Terps OL Mike Madaras has left the program
— Terrapin Times (@MDTerrapinTimes) October 29, 2013
Madaras, the sophomore starter at left tackle and arguably best player on the offensive line, has yet to comment on the matter. Madaras became the starter in the offseason. Madaras was a four-star recruit out of local Good Counsel high school, as well as an Under Armour All-American. His departure leaves the Terrapins offensive line quite short-staffed at this point.
As for why Madaras ended up leaving the program, right now we can only speculate. If one has a relatively decent memory, they can recall that Madaras was suspended in the off-season for two weeks. According to the Maryland student-athlete code of conduct, the only offense that garners a suspension of two weeks is a failed drug test. I’ll let you speculate on that one.
Madaras did have a tumultuous relationship with this staff, but it did appear he was on the right track to straightening up and building towards becoming a three-year starter. Now that he has departed (with no return in sight), this marks the third offensive lineman to leave the program under Edsall’s tenure. Max Garcia (now a starter at Florida) and R.J. Dill (now on the Jacksonville Jaguars) both eventually left the program.
This is a huge problem for the Terrapins. Even though Madaras has had a pretty rough string of games lately (he had two false starts last game, and a couple holding penalties), he is still a true sophomore who oozes talent. Losing him forces the Terps to rely on Jake Wheeler, who wasn’t even on the team last week. That’s not going to be good for Maryland, no matter how you try to spin it.
We’ll keep the story updated as we find out more.