BTN analyst looking to see two things from Maryland football vs. Northern Illinois

Ahmed Ghafir
Sep 5
3 min read

Maryland football will look to build on its week one momentum when it hosts Northern Illinois, but despite just one game under its belt, Maryland will get a chance to ease concerns in a pair of areas on Friday night.

Maryland opened the 2025 season on defense as Florida Atlantic drove the length of the field before junior LB Daniel Wingate stepped up for a goal-line stop on fourth down. Still, Florida Atlantic’s opening possession turned into a 12-play drive thanks to five penalties, including three pre-snap. Maryland’s eight penalties through the first quarter nearly matched game season-highs in each of the last two seasons, but the team settled down through the game after being called for three in the second quarter, then three through the entire second half.

Maryland enters week two ranked 129^th in penalty yards (100) and 133^rd in penalties (14) among 136 FBS teams as BTN analyst Gerry DiNardo pointed to it as an area of focus against Northern Illinois.

“It’s hard to say to a team ‘we have to cut our penalties in half, down to 50.’ I mean, they had 100 yards in penalties and coach Locks talks about this all the time, how they’re sometimes their own worst enemy.”

Still, QB Malik Washington guided the Terps to a dominant second quarter as he now enters his second start with a higher QBR than Garrett Nussmeier, Drew Allar and Cade Klubnik, among others. But the focus remains on providing balance to the Terps’ offense. Maryland finished with just 112 yards on the ground while averaging nearly 3.7 yards per carry, an area that DiNardo emphasized must improve ahead of conference play.

“I think the other thing that has to be addressed is the run game. Malik Washington, we saw him in camp. I mean, this is a great get for them and he’s going to live up to all expectations. He was 27-of-43, three touchdowns, no picks. The issue is they rushed for 112 yards. And at some point when you get into conference play, to think that you could have that type of ratio is a little unrealistic for this reason: to throw for that many yards in a conference game, you have protection problems because you’re playing against some of the best athletes in college football in the Big Ten defenses. And you have coverage issues trying to get free in some of the best secondaries in the country. So coach Locks knows this, you’ve got to stop the penalties but they’ve got to run the ball better before they get to conference play.”

Head coach Mike Locksley noted he “didn't anticipate [Malik Washington] throwing the ball 43 times” during the week one win, though the run game is an area he’s looking to see improvement in from week one to week two with Nolan Ray and DeJuan Williams looking to breakout against a defense that allowed 62 total yards and 2.4 yards per carry vs. Holy Cross last week.

“We do run a style of offense that allows, if they're going to load the box up, we have to take advantage [of] what they give us. We had some short yardage situations that I didn't feel like we played with the right mentality,” Locksley added. “And as a group that's starting to gel and come together that [offensive] line, and having seen what we did during training camp, that's one of the areas.”

Related Links