So Navy is put off at Maryland again. Some news flash, huh? The only Man Bites Dog this time around is former Terps linebacker Jerry Fishman had nothing to do with it. Presumably, anyway. But one never knows.

According to Tuesday's Baltimore Sun, Navy athletic director Chet Gladchuk is so disillusioned by University of Maryland football that he doesn't know if it's possible for another game between Navy and Maryland to be scheduled for the 2010 season.

Seems Maryland athletic director Debbie Yow contacted Gladchuk to gauge Navy's interest since the 2005 game in Baltimore went over so well after the schools, 30 miles apart, went 42 years without playing. Gladchuk, however, said he feels the series could have and should have been renewed last December, but Maryland chose not to play the Midshipmen in the Meineke Car Care bowl in Charlotte, N.C., opting instead to play Purdue in the Champs Sports Bowl in Orlando, Fla.

"We were just very disappointed this past winter when we had a chance to play again in Charlotte, and Maryland decided to do something different," Gladchuk told the Sun. "It's confused us a little bit. We just haven't come to a conclusion right now with regard to 2010."

Gladchuk went on to say, "The stage was set for everything we had talked about, and all the good things that could have happened for fans - a big rematch, a bowl setting, a great city ... it would have been a sellout in Charlotte, and they decided to do something else that has caused us to pause a little bit and think through the whole relationship."

Maryland head coach Ralph Friedgen wasn't touched at all by Gladchuk's hurt feelings, telling the Sun, "He's gotta get over it."

Friedgen and Yow said Navy never really entered their thinking last December because it was the Maryland players who voted to go to Orlando for the Champs Sports Bowl. And, you know, even if the Terps players hadn't voted that way, they likely would have been told they had since the Champs Sports Bowl is said to be the No. 4-rated non-BCS bowl, while the Gary Roenicke Bowl in Charlotte is said to be No. 6.

More money, warmer weather and more exposure in playing a Big Ten team is what the Terps chose to do. What would Navy have done if the shoe had been on the other foot?

Now if you care to read between the lines here - and, naturally, we do - you can surmise that Navy might be hinting that Maryland didn't want to play last December because Maryland didn't want to lose. And a case could have been made at the time that Maryland would have had a tougher time with Navy, a 25-24 loser to Boston College in Charlotte, than it did with Purdue, whom the Terps beat 24-7. However, you can also surmise that Maryland's passing game, which was as good as it had been all season against Purdue, would have shredded the Navy secondary even more than it did the Boilermakers' that night.

Anybody who attended the 2005 Maryland-Navy game, a 23-20 Maryland win, can attest that an electric, big-time college football atmosphere prevailed that night at M&T; Bank Stadium. With over 67,000 fans in attendance, the Terps and the Mids put on a show in a game that paid both schools more than $1 million; and that apparently is what has Gladchuk chapped.

"All the reasons we played the first time," Gladchuk told the Sun, "all the justifications why it was such an important game for our collective communities, and then when we had a chance to do it again, they decided to go to Orlando and play Purdue. What's that all about? We're a little confused. It's something we're still grappling with here and trying to sort out their thought process."

Truth is, Maryland's thought process is simple. They have an opening on their 2010 schedule and they would like to fill it with Navy. Yow told the Sun she would like to have the issue resolved in four to six weeks. Gladchuk said, "My timetable was Charlotte in December."

This all has the give-and-take of a Sam Malone-Diane Chambers relationship:

Whatever I do, it's never enough.

That's true, whatever you do, it is never enough.

And, sure, no matter how hard you try to make it appear you've kissed, made up and are playing nice, there is always a lingering contentiousness between neighbors when there are perceived past transgressions involved. As Beano Cook wrote in 2005 before the last Maryland-Navy game, "It's ironic that Navy has forgiven Japan for Pearl Harbor, but it took much longer - 40 years - for the Middies to forgive Maryland."

Honestly, I find it very hard to believe Navy would have gone to North Carolina in December if it had been afforded the opportunity to go to Florida, but that's just based on my own personal preferences. So perhaps another former college football writer, Beano Shakespeare, might have said it best when he wrote, "The Navy doth protest too much, methinks."

Yes, methinks somebody here is playing hard to get.

So if you care to read between the lines, and if you care to venture a guess - which, naturally, we do - plan on being in Baltimore in 2010 for another Maryland-Navy football game. By then there will likely be at least three million reasons for all of us to be there.

Mike Burke can be reached at mburke@times-news.com.