Maryland football is 18 days away from its season opener against Buffalo but with the first AP Poll released ahead of the start of the 2022 season, the Terps will once again face a tough schedule.
All four ranked Big Ten teams—Ohio State (2), Michigan (8), Michigan State (15) and Wisconsin (18)—will face Maryland this season along with Penn State and Purdue, two teams that received votes in the first rankings. Iowa and Nebraska are the only Big Ten teams to receive votes and not face Maryland in 2022. Michigan will be up first as the Terps travel to the Big House to kick off conference play on September 24 and will host Michigan State the following week, while Maryland’s slate in November features consecutive road games against Wisconsin and Penn State before hosting Ohio State.
While Maryland is no stranger to a tough schedule in the Big Ten, ESPN’s college football power index still gives Maryland a 76.2% of reaching six wins as the non-conference slate will prove to be an integral part of turning that into reality. After hosting Buffalo and traveling to Charlotte to kick off the 2022 season, Maryland will host SMU on September 17 inside Maryland Stadium for a 7:30 PM kickoff in what will undoubtedly be the toughest non-conference game. Still, the fan perception remains that Maryland will need to beat one of the top Big Ten teams in order to take a step forward heading into year four under head coach Mike Locksley, but Maryland does it necessarily view it that way.
“Terps versus Terps isn’t just a camp thing,” Locksley said on Saturday following Maryland’s first scrimmage. “To me, it’s an always thing because the opponent is really important, but what’s more important is that good teams don’t beat themselves in any of the three phases. And that’s what Terps vs. Terps are for us. It’s us not beating ourselves and having self-inflicted errors like turnovers and penalties and drop balls and missed tackles. Those are all things that we can control. So, when we reference Terps versus Terps, it’s us managing and taking care of the things that we can control, which is half the battle to winning.”
With the season right around the corner, Anthony Herron from BTN expressed his optimism for Maryland to become the possible breakout team in the conference this season.
“Maryland’s going to be really good this year. And every season in the Big Ten we have one of those squads that ended up being kind of the surprise double-digit win club. You know, it was Indiana at one point, it was Minnesota the year before that, it was Michigan State last year. Now they’re in the deepest division in college football in the Big Ten East so maybe Maryland isn’t a double-digit win squad, but if there’s anyone in the Big Ten I say can drastically exceed preseason expectations, it seems to me to be the Terps.”
"Maryland's gonna be really good this year."
🗣 @BigAntHerron #B1Gtoday // @TerpsFootball pic.twitter.com/N3CflHoZMW
— Maryland On BTN (@MarylandOnBTN) August 16, 2022
Maryland returns an experienced group of firepower on the offensive side of the ball with quarterback Taulia Tagovailoa protected by a starting five that saw time in all 13 games last fall, while he’ll have a lethal wide receiver room to work with after both Jeshaun Jones and Dontay Demus have returned for fall camp. “Dontay took part in the scrimmage. Made a couple good plays in there for us. He’s still right on track like we talked about in our opening media opportunity,” Locksley reiterated.
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