Pondering Maryland's season makes my head hurt.

The Terps haven't just lost to Middle Tennessee and hopeless Virginia on either side of upsets over top 20 outfits from California and Clemson -- they've been embarrassed. Look at the Cavs' first three games against I-A competition: 45-point loss to USC, 35-point loss to UConn, 28-point loss to Duke. A "turnaround" on UVA's part might account for a close loss to Maryland, or a close win. A 31-0 whitewash on the heels of those disasters is a wholesale collapse by the Terps, their second in under a month, just when it looked like they were pulling things together.

On one level, this is so very, very Maryland; even after the Cal and Clemson wins, I wrote last week: "[A]nother Middle Tennessee is lurking somewhere in there ... As stunning as three wins in a row would have sounded three weeks ago, an eminent losing skid seems about as likely." But getting blanked by a lame duck coming off a 31-3 loss to Duke? Freud couldn't diagnose that in a thousand years (although Dr. Lou might, in his ever-prescient maxim, "You coach a different team every week").