1950 Maryland Terrapins football team
Maryland was led by fourth-year head coach Jim Tatum, who "Time" magazine called "the most successful major college coach in the game" during his nine-year tenure at College Park. To date, Tatum remains the winningest Maryland football coach of the modern era, with a winning percentage of 0.819. The team was led on the field by sophomore quarterback and future Heisman Trophy runner-up Jack Scarbath who made his first career start in the season-opener.
Curley Byrd
Two years later, Byrd hired Jim Tatum as football coach. The year prior at Oklahoma, Tatum fielded a winning team, but the athletic department ran up a huge deficit and some players were paid in violation of conference rules, which resulted in university president George Cross firing athletic director Jap Haskell. The media blamed Tatum for his termination. Tatum told Cross to refute Tatum's role in the matter, and threatened to reveal the Oklahoma team had been paid $6,000 after the 1947 Gator Bowl. Cross asked Byrd to persuade Tatum not to go public, and according to author Gary King in "An Autumn Remembered", Byrd replied, "Persuade, hell! I'll tell him to keep his damn mouth shut!" Tatum remained as coach at Maryland from 1947 to 1955, and amassed a 73–15–4 record.