Hill still a work in progress at quarterback

COLLEGE PARK n an afternoon when the Maryland football team did exactly what everyone thought it was going to do to woeful Rutgers, quarterback Kasim Hill threw three flashy touchdown passes and reminded us all how good he can be.

He also left us to wonder why, for every one of those bursts of brilliance, there was an open receiver leaping in vain to reach what should have been a routine throw-andcatch.

Nobody’s perfect, of course, and Hill is a redshirt freshman who missed almost all of last season. But this is the Big Ten and he’s going to have to get more consistent hitting his targets to put the improved Terps in position for a decent bowl bid.

He was 8-for-17 for 76 yards Saturday, when the low yardage total didn’t much matter. The Terps ran over the Scarlet Knights, rushing 40 times for 290 yards and 7.3 yards per carry. But they will have to be more balanced to have a chance of upsetting Iowa on the road next week or picking off one of the other conference powers that remain on their schedule.

Obviously, Rutgers isn’t one of them. The Terps were favored by 23 points, but the level of the competition was not the problem. Hill showed great poise in the red zone and made some terrific throws into coverage, but also misfired badly on a handful of very convertible plays.

The fact that he isn’t making more of those routine throws with ease is a curious See SCHMUCK, page 9

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