In conjunction with the annual campus open house, Maryland will play its Red/White spring game this Saturday in College Park, and, no doubt, many of their recruits will be awed by the throng of fans who will flock to Byrd Stadium.

The jury apparently is out over whether recruits around the country are being influenced by the large crowds that are showing up at these spring scrimmages. Kids and their parents, of course, need to ask whether a turnout of 50,000 to 100,000 in April is equivalent to what things will look like in September.

More to the point, how close to real conditions, including those encountered in the classroom and socially, is what they'll see during a weekend with a hyped-up intrasquad game?