Maryland football set to face three preseason top-20 teams in 2025

Ahmed Ghafir
22 hours ago
2 min read

Less than three weeks away from kicking off the 2025 season, Maryland football head coach Mike Locksley knows September allows a chance for his team to build momentum into the Big Ten slate. On3 included Maryland among the 11 easiest non-conference schedules among Power Four teams with all three matchups set in College Park.

“The first month’s always important in every year because it’s kind of momentum builder, it’s how you try to build momentum,” head coach Mike Locksley said in an interview with NBC. “There’s no doubt that we’ve been able to take advantage of those early games in the previous years we’ve had success.”

Then, Maryland will prepare for a Big Ten slate that avoids the projected preseason top three teams. Maryland won’t face Penn State for the first time since joining the Big Ten, while the Terps avoid a matchup with Ohio State for a second consecutive season. While part two of the Nike vs. Under Armour bowl will have to wait with Oregon set to head to College Park in 2027, Maryland’s upcoming conference slate still features three top-20 opponents following the release of the first AP poll of the season.

Still, Maryland's 2025 schedule features three games against preseason top-20 opponents with Illinois (12) ahead of Michigan (14) and Indiana (20). Nebraska, who will travel to College Park on Oct 11, unofficially ranked 34th after drawing 23 votes. All three ranked teams were also included in the first coaches poll of the season with Illinois (12) ahead of Michigan (14) and Indiana (19). Meanwhile, FOX Sports analyst RJ Young ranked Maryland 76th among the 136 FBS teams heading into the season.

“I feel very strongly though that we missed three playoff teams, but if you look at the depth of this Big Ten and this league, from top to bottom, there is no easy weeks in this league,” Locksley added. “Because of the coaching, the type of players and our league itself. And so we’re fortunate the schedule Gods, maybe we missed three of the playoff teams but I can tell you three other teams that we played this year that were in contention to make playoffs a year ago and will be this year. We have to show up, we have to be prepared, we have to prepare the right way and our players and our coaching staff, we have to do a great job of coaching and making plays in this league to be able to be able to have that bounceback that we all want to have.”

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