ESPN tabs Maryland football as "just looking for a path to 6-6" ahead of 2025 season

Ahmed Ghafir
Jul 18, 2025
2 min read

Nearly 40 days away from kickoff and four days away from Maryland football taking the podium at Big Ten Media Day in Las Vegas, ESPN previewed the Big Ten heading into the 2025 season with Maryland’s youth movement looking to surpass expectations.

Returning just 43% of last year’s production, tied with Purdue for the second-lowest among any Big Ten team, ESPN’s model projected 2.5 conference wins for Maryland despite a conference slate that avoids Ohio State, Penn State and Oregon. While at least two conference wins could hit the ‘over’ on preseason win totals across several sportsbooks given Maryland’s favorable non-conference schedule to open the season, only Northwestern and Purdue were projected for fewer conference wins with the Terps drawing a 36.4% chance at securing bowl eligibility.

Placing each program in tiers with Oregon, Penn State, Ohio State and Michigan leading the way, ESPN tabbed Maryland as a team “just looking for a path to 6-6” alongside Michigan State, Northwestern and Purdue.

ESPN on Maryland: “In 2024's "The Price: What It Takes to Win in College Football's Era of Chaos," authors Armen Keteyan and John Talty talked to Maryland's Locksley about his school jockeying for position in this new paying-the-players world. Locksley compared his Terps to Macy's, trying to keep both the higher-end "Saks Fifth Avenues of college football" from plucking away his best talent and the discount stores from taking away his young backups. "I'm getting eaten from both ends, and that's why you don't see f---ing Macy's very much anymore," he said.

I thought about that quote a lot as Maryland got absolutely wrecked by the portal this offseason, losing starters and key contributors to Arkansas, Auburn, Colorado, Indiana, Kentucky, Ole Miss, Texas, UAB (really?) and Wisconsin, and losing backups to Coastal Carolina, East Carolina, Fresno State, Georgia State, James Madison, Sacramento State, Sam Houston and UCF. Maryland had already suffered a disastrous 2024 season, collapsing to 4-8 and 86th in SP+, then got hit harder by spring attrition than almost any power conference program. The Terps are 107th in returning production and looking at only about a one-in-three chance of bowling this fall. Locksley had engineered three straight winning seasons and two top-30 SP+ finishes, but it feels as if he's starting from scratch in Year 7.

There's almost no choice but to go with a full youth movement in 2025, but it could bear decent fruit. Blue-chip freshman Malik Washington could start at quarterback next to sophomore running back (and yards-after-contact machine) Nolan Ray and behind a line that might feature only one or two seniors. The defense has quite a few exciting sophomores -- edge rushers Neeo Avery and Trey Reddick, transfer tackles Joel Starlings (North Carolina) and Eyan Thomas (Saint Francis), cornerback La'Khi Roland -- and blue-chip freshmen such as end Zahir Mathis could quickly play a role.

Forced to go young, Locksley could find he has a pretty exciting roster corps. But that might not help him much in 2025, and he'll then have to hold on to that roster corps in 2026. That certainly proved difficult this past offseason.”

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