Maryland football opens as road underdog vs. Wisconsin + notable team/player stats

Ahmed Ghafir
Sep 14
3 min read

Maryland football did what many hoped and expected after coming out of nonconference play still perfect. Head coach Mike Locksley will now look to extend that early season momentum into the Big Ten opener as Maryland football prepares to head to Madison to face Wisconsin on Saturday, Sept. 20.

Maryland will do so as comfortable underdogs with Wisconsin a seven-point favorite heading into game week. The Badgers opened as a 7.5-point favorite, per DraftKings, as Maryland looks for its first win against the Badgers in five tries.

Maryland is 6-12 on the road in conference play and fell to Wisconsin in Madison, 23-10, back in 2022 in the lone matchup under head coach Mike Locksley.

The biggest storyline heading into kickoff is the status of quarterback Billy Edwards Jr. The former Maryland starting quarterback is set to at least stand opposite of his former team next week, but whether he plays has become increasingly uncertain since going down in week one. Edwards suffered a knee sprain in the week one win vs. Miami (OH) as initial reports pointed to the week three matchup vs. Alabama as a possibility to return, but that didn’t come to fruition with Edwards listed as questionable and QB Danny O’Neil leading the Badgers into an eventual 38-14 loss.

Maryland is coming off a 44-17 win vs. Towson with the Tigers scoring ten of its 17 points in the fourth quarter as Locksley noted the critical reps the bulk of the roster received to establish depth ahead of Big Ten play.

“Our depth will come from a guy like Isaiah Wright, who can play left guard playing some left tackle when we need to take a few plays off of Rahtrel Perry,” Locksley said after the win. “It will come from moving Kerm [Humes] from the nickel slot to playing outside corner because Jamare Glaser is out. And so today we were able to mix and match some personnel groupings. We got Trey [Reddick] doing a little more pass rusher, which got us putting 23 [Keyshawn Flowers] on the field. There was a lot of Rubik's Cubes movements with trying to play enough players at the right time in the right positions so that we can create depth and when in fact, we do need it.”

Maryland team/player rankings & stats ahead of Big Ten opener

6: Maryland ranks tied second nationally in turnover margin (+6)

7: Maryland is one of seven FBS teams nationally with no runs over 20 yards in three games

8: Maryland’s eight takeaways leads the country through three games

8.5: Sidney Stewart’s 8.5 TFLs rank eighth nationally and lead the Big Ten

18: Maryland has now won 18 consecutive nonconference games, tying Alabama for the fourth-longest streak since 2015 among Power Four teams

25: the team’s 25 penalties rank t-120^th nationally and 17^th in the Big Ten ahead of UCLA

33: total points allowed by Maryland’s defense over the last three games, fewest since 2001

79: Shaleak Knotts’ 79 receiving yards marked a career high

103: Octavian Smith recorded his first career 100-yard receiving game, the first of his career, after leading the team with 103 receiving yards

1962: La’Khi Roland's 100-yard pick-six in the third quarter is Maryland's first since 1962

2018: True freshman safety Messiah Delhomme recorded a blocked punt in the fourth quarter, the program’s first since DL Jesse Aniebonam did so vs. Temple in 2018

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