Maryland football opens as double-digit favorite vs. Florida Atlantic in week one

Ahmed Ghafir
Aug 24
2 min read

At last, the offseason is finally over as Maryland football is set to kick off the 2025 season in SECU Stadium on Saturday, August 30 for a noon kickoff on the Big Ten Network.

Maryland will do so with Florida Atlantic headed to College Park, marking the first-ever matchup between the two teams with Maryland a healthy favorite to open the season. Maryland enters week one as a 14-point favorite, per DraftKings, with the over/under set at 59.5.

The Owls are set to kick off the Zach Kittley era after former head coach Tom Herman was fired this offseason, avoiding a chance for him to fall to 0-3 vs. Maryland all-time. This marks the first head coaching opportunity for Kittley after spending seven seasons at Texas Tech across two stints, most recently serving as the OC and QB coach beginning in 2022.

As for Maryland, Saturday marks the beginning of the youth movement in College Park with several true freshmen ready to make an impact after generating buzz through the offseason. Heading into year seven for head coach Mike Locksley, Maryland will look to extend the nation’s longest non-conference win streak to 16 games on Saturday.

“I always use this analogy of throwing a snake in the crib with a baby. That's what it's kind of been like for me, because they don't know what they don't know. They haven't been conditioned based on experiences and games of how good the type of teams they're going to face. And so that eagerness for them to compete is why I'm excited. Some people see it as a negative I see it as a really positive thing because, you know what, I don't know, but the people we play don’t know either. What they're going to see or what they're going to face and it's my job and our staff’s job to create structure and boundaries that allow these guys to excel on the field and bounce back the way we want our program to bounce back.”

Saturday’s game will also serve as a reunion of sorts with multiple connections between the two programs. Jajuan Delaney, who lined up as an offensive lineman at Maryland from 2013 to 2016, now serves as Florida Atlantic’s tight ends coach. Along the roster, Florida native Derrick Rogers, a brief Maryland commit in the 2024 class, is projected to factor into the Owls’ cornerback rotation this season while Ja’Kavion Nonar, who spent one season at Maryland, is in the mix to start at tackle in 2025.

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