ESPN includes Maryland football in 2025 bowl projections

Ahmed Ghafir
Aug 15, 2025
2 min read

While sportsbooks have been bearish on Maryland football’s odds to reach bowl eligibility in 2025, others view year seven of the Mike Locksley era after ESPN rolled out its final preseason bowl projections.

Kyle Bonagura of ESPN projected Maryland to face Miami (Ohio) in the GameAbove Sports Bowl, which is set for 1 PM on December 26 at Ford Field. Mark Schlabach of ESPN projected Michigan State to face Miami (Ohio) in the same game and excluded Maryland from his bowl projections, while Wisconsin and Rutgers were the lone 2025 opponents who were omitted from postseason projections by both Schlabach and Bonagura.

Maryland and Miami (Ohio) have only played once when the Red Hawks walked out of College Park with a 34-21 win back on Nov. 8, 1969. If Maryland were to land in the GameAbove Sports Bowl, it’d mark the consecutive games at Ford Field with the Terps already set to close out the regular season at Ford Field when they take on Michigan State on November 29.

It'd also mark the second time in ten years that Maryland’s bowl appearance landed them in Detroit after falling to Boston College, 36-30, during year one of the DJ Durkin era back in 2016.

While the consensus preseason win total has remained steady at 4.5 through the summer, Maryland is now 15 days away from kicking off their pursuit of bowl eligibility for the fourth time in the last five seasons with a chance to extend their bowl game win streak to four, marking a program best. Head coach Mike Locksley will lean on the foundation of the 2025 class to get the program back to bowl eligibility.

“In this landscape it’s really important because these guys are going to be thrust into roles immediately,” Locksley said on Wednesday. “And because of the new landscape and, again, we've had to pivot as coaches. And the days of me talking about being a developmental program, you haven't heard me use that around here a lot because the development is win now and get these guys ready to play now and expedite their maturation. I brought in some coaches that have that ability because of having to do it at the highest level where you don't know who your team is until two weeks before your first game, being able to get a team of guys to gel, see some of the differences of what we do with their input into our systems here in Maryland.”

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