Maryland at Virginia

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  Evening star, November 27, 1961, page 20

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  Maryland’s conditional &C ceptance of a Gator Bowl bid may rank as the No. l football boner Of 1861. Nobody can remember a similar situation where a team called a press conference and announced it was going to a bowl if it defeated next weeks opponent. The conference was called in Coach Tom Nugent’S office last Monday and he and Bill Cobey, director of athletics, announced that the Terps would play in the Gator Bowl if they defeated Virginia, which they we’re expected to do handily. Henry Kramer, chairman of the Gator Bowl Selection Com mittee. said in Charlottesville Saturday that the announce ment was not his idea. I’VE wired them that we’d like to have them with an 8–⁠2 record, Kramer said. They took it from there” Nugent Denies RumOrs 1t was the second piece of poor timing by the Maryland coaching staff this year. Seniors Pat Drass and Don VanReenan were dropped from the squad after the Penn State game for improper attitude” That incident led to rumors that there was dissension on the team, although Nugent de- MED it. However. the Terps certainly sagged in their last three games. They barely beat North Carolina State and Wake Forest by 10–⁠7 scores in their home stadium. and then lost to Virginia, 28–⁠16. Play Into Elias Hands One of the head coaches in the Atlantic Coast Conference said last week, Il don’t know what’s happened to the Mary land team, but it has not played the football over the past two weeks that it is capable of. 1t was a tremendous football team against Syracuse and Penn State” The acceptance Of the Gator Bowl bid on the condition of a victory over Virginia played right into; the hands of Bill Elias, coach of the Cavaliers. 1t was a perfect setup, and Re made the most of it. If Nugent thought he needed the promise of a bowl bid to in

Public-domain newspapers from the Library of Congress’s Chronicling America, found through the American Stories dataset (Dell and Harvard, CC BY 4.0). The text is the machine reading of the page, mistakes and all.

Maryland leads 46–⁠32–⁠2 in 80 meetings, counting the 54 since this game.