Aazaar Abdul-Rahim had to wait until the final snap to comfortably celebrate his first win as Maryland’s interim head coach. Purdue had driven to the Maryland 11-yard line with five seconds left, close enough for a touchdown to erase the Terrapins’ five-point lead. A penalty backed the Boilermakers up, and Zion Elee and Sidney Stewart sacked quarterback Ryan Browne as time expired.
The 34-29 win Saturday in West Lafayette ended a six-game losing streak for Maryland and a 13-game skid in Big Ten play. Afterward, Abdul-Rahim spoke about what the players had been through since the school fired Mike Locksley following a 2-5 start. It’s all about them at the end of the day,” Abdul-Rahim said in remarks shared by Yahoo Sports.
Abdul-Rahim, a Washington, D.C., native who founded the football program at Friendship Collegiate Academy, took over at Maryland on Oct. 21. His debut ended with Illinois kicking a field goal as time expired for a 20-17 win. A week later, Maryland again needed its defense to protect a lead on the road team’s final play.
This time, the Terps finished the job with their seventh sack, their most in a game since 2020. Quarterback Malik Washington accounted for all but one of Maryland’s five touchdowns. Down 12-7 at halftime, he found Na’eem Abdul-Rahim Gladding on a screen that went 44 yards for the Terps’ first lead.
A strip-sack by Lavain Scruggs set up Washington’s second rushing touchdown, and DeJuan Williams broke off a 75-yard scoring run to put Maryland ahead 28-19. Chris Durr Jr. turned another screen into an 87-yard touchdown early in the fourth quarter. The Boilermakers scored to get within five and converted a fourth-and-10 from their own 5 on their last drive before Elee and Stewart reached Browne.
Maryland returns to College Park at 3-6 to host Wisconsin next weekend. For a program that went 413 days between conference wins, Abdul-Rahim kept his postgame message simple.
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