Will 2025 be the year Maryland Football ends its ranked drought?
Maryland football was last ranked in the AP Poll in 2019. Current head coach Mike Locksley was entering his first season with the Terps and looking to begin a new brand of football in College Park.
Josh Jackson and Tyrell Pigrome led the quarterback committee; they also had a running back tandem of Javon Leake (736 yards and eight touchdowns), Anthony McFarland Jr. (614 yards and eight touchdowns), and Tayon Fleet-Davis (280 yards and two scores). Dontay Demus Jr. led the receiving department hauling in 41 catches for 625 yards and six touchdowns.
Defensively, they were led by Keandre Jones ( seven sacks and 15 tackles for loss). Antonie Brooks Jr. had 87 total tackles (68 solo and 18 assisted), one interception, five pass breakups, and one fumble recovery. Current breakout safety Nick Cross, who plays for the Indianapolis Colts, was in his first year, as was New York Giants' defensive back Deonte Banks.
The Terps opened the 2019 season with back-to-back home victories. They began with a 79-0 shutout against Howard and followed that with a 63-20 win against the No. 21-ranked Syracuse Orange, which catapulted them to be ranked No. 21 themselves after the victory.
Despite three straight bowl-winning seasons from 2021 to 2023, the Terps never reached the AP Poll during that span.
Now, switching gears and looking towards the upcoming season in less than two weeks. What chance does Locksley and his team have of making it among the top 25 this season?
Well, it may be a tough challenge for a team that has almost an entirely new look both offensively and defensively, that features players stepping into bigger roles that they haven't seen in their collegiate careers, and an influx of transfers that make their way to the gridiron for the Terps.
They have a favorable schedule opening up in their first three games against non-conference opponents, before entering Big Ten play the rest of the way;
- at Wisconsin
- vs. Washington
- vs. Nebraska
- at UCLA
- vs. Indiana
- at Rutgers
- at Illinois
- vs. Michigan
- at Michigan State
The games I have bolded will be the most brutal stretch of the Big Ten conference schedule. Illinois is a team on the rise in the Big Ten after finishing 10-3 and the No. 20th team in the country last year. Michigan, despite a disappointing finish for its standards last year, will always be a top team to beat. Despite Michigan State not being a powerhouse football program, the Terps are 3-7 in their last 10 games against them. You've got to beat them before you can mark that as a victory under the predictions.
Watch out for the matchups against Nebraska and Indiana. These two teams can turn some heads in the conference this season if they build on the development they established last year.
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Jaden's sports journalism career began at the College of Southern Maryland from 2022-2023, where he was brought in to cover baseball, softball, basketball, soccer, and volleyball at CSM. In late 2023, he began interning at the University of Maryland Athletics Department as a contributing writer to help develop feature stories and game recaps. He also creates his own sports media content on professional Washington teams with LegacyMaker Sports Network.