McFarland starting to live up to hype in Terps backfield
After back-to-back 100-yard rushing games, redshirt freshman draws attention
There were flashbacks last Saturday for Maryland running back Anthony McFarland and for those who watched the redshirt freshman run for two touchdowns in a 42-13 win over Minnesota. The biggest one came on his second touchdown, a 64yard dash in which he started to his left, cut right through a hole and broke free while easily outracing the Golden Gophers to the end zone.
That run, which followed a 26-yard touchdown earlier in the game, reminded him of when he was just starting his sophomore year at DeMatha. He ran for two touchdowns, including a 97-yarder, against St. Mary’s Ryken in the season opener.
Asked Tuesday about the similarities Oct. 6, noon TV: Chs. 2, 7 Radio: 105.7 FM
between those two scores, McFarland said: “Yeah, it did. I’ve been having flashbacks a lot about when I played at DeMatha. … It’s a great feeling to see it pan out at the next level.”
McFarland said that his first two college touchdowns felt different than the countless others he scored in high school, or even going back to when he first started playing with the Bowie Boys & Girls Club as an 8-year-old.
“Your success on the college level is different. I didn’t know that until after the game,” he said. “When I’m in the game, it just felt like me just playing the game when I was young. … It’s just a humbling experience, just a great moment.”
It even got his father, Anthony Sr., excited. Though scoring touchdowns “has been the story” of his son’s life, the elder McFarland felt there was something special in what his son did last Saturday, a performance that earned him Big Ten Co-Freshman of the Week honors.
“People always look at me and say I never jump up and down and get excited. The reason being, I’m so used to him doing that,” the elder McFarland said Tuesday. “I would say the first touchdown on Saturday, I did jump up and down.”
Anthony Sr. said it was “probably for the first time since who knows” — perhaps when his son was playing youth football on the same Prince George’s County team as future Maryland teammate Kasim Hill when they were 13 — that he got so excited.
“I did because of everything he’s been through and how hard he’s worked and the sacrifices he made to get to back to this kind of level of play,” said Anthony Sr., who ran track in high school at Bishop McNamara.
Just like what happened during his sophomore year at DeMatha, McFarland’s performance in his first Big Ten game is starting to get him noticed. McFarland is the first Maryland freshman to rush for over 100 yards in back-to-back games since 1979.
As a sophomore at DeMatha, McFarland ran for 1,124 yards while averaging better than 10 yards a carry. He leads the Big Ten with 10.8 yards a carry after gaining 112 on six attempts against the Gophers.
McFarland might have shown just as much, if not more, the week before, when he rushed for 107 yards on 11 attempts on a day when the rest of the team gained just 25 rushing yards in a 35-14 loss to Temple in the home opener.
His performance against Minnesota, which had allowed just 72 rushing yards a game in its first three games, certainly put him on the radar of the league’s defensive Maryland running back Anthony McFarland breaks through the Minnesota defense on the way to a first-quarter touchdown Saturday in a 42-13 victory at College Park. McFarland is averaging 10.8 yards a carry for the Terps this season. coordinators. Maryland (3-1, 1-0) doesn’t play again until an Oct. 6 road game at No. 14 Michigan.
“I’m really, really happy for him that he had a game Saturday where he was able to play well and we were able to win,” Maryland interim coach and first-year offensive coordinator Matt Canada said on Tuesday’s Big Ten coaches’ teleconference.
“Obviously the week before he had some good plays, but we played so poorly that he was unhappy. He’s an unselfish guy. He wants to win, too. He’s a very talented player, and he’s shown that since the day I got here.”
Ironically, it might have been the broken fibula and the torn tendon in his left ankle McFarland suffered in his first game as a high school senior that might have helped him solidify his decision to come to Maryland.
McFarland recalled after a practice in the spring that he spent a lot of his free time hanging out at the Gossett Team House with some of his future coaches and teammates, including a few he played with at DeMatha.
“Before I got hurt, I was looking at Maryland. I wasn’t really sure about them,” McFarland said Tuesday. “It wasn’t until I got hurt that I really started to think about staying home. It just came to my mind a lot.”
In some ways, McFarland believes it was divine intervention.
“When I go through adversity in life, it is God telling me what’s best for me,” said McFarland, who was the No. 3-ranked running back in the country during his junior year before choosing the Terps over Georgia and Penn State.
Just as the year he was sidelined at DeMatha helped strengthen his commitment to Maryland, being redshirted last fall enabled the 5-foot-8, 195-pound McFarland to see the game at another level.
”Definitely from high school to where I got hurt to now, I feel totally different — my body, my speed, getting my feel for the game, preparing for the game,” he said. “I feel like I’m approaching the game better.
“Yeah people can say it’s my talent, what I’ve been doing my whole life, but at the next level, you have to turn it up a notch off the field in how you prepare. Just putting my head down and grinding hard every day in the offseason shows how it’s paying off.”
What also helped McFarland is the competition he faces for playing time, similar to what he experienced early in his career at DeMatha. On Saturday, McFarland’s two touchdowns sandwiched a career-long 81-yard score by senior Ty Johnson.
“The running back room is never about outdoing each other, because we see how special this running back room is,” McFarland said. “It’s not just me and Ty that can do that. It’s Lorenzo Harrison [III, who sat out the past two games recovering from an undisclosed injury] and Tayon Fleet-Davis and Javon Leake and Jake Funk. That goes to show you how deep we are.”
Canada believes that the competition has also helped players like Johnson, who gained 123 yards on 11 carries against the Gophers, and Fleet-Davis, who went over 100 yards against Bowling Green.
“Competition is the greatest thing in the world,” Canada said.
Asked if he feels like he is finally healthy enough to show what many have expected since his years at DeMatha, McFarland said, “Seeing where I’m at now, I’m a better back than ever. Not even a better back, but a better football player. Being more reliable than ever. Trying to take my game to the next level. “
It all goes back to the gruesome injury he suffered at DeMatha two years ago.
“Even when you face adversity, you just got to keep getting back up and keep going,” McFarland said. “That’s what I live by and [how] I was raised. I‘ll be living with that for the rest of my life.”