While the season has gone far from what fans expected heading into year six of the Mike Locksley era, Maryland football still has a chance to secure bowl eligibility with two of their final three games at home. The same can be said for Rutgers, who enters Saturday just one win away from punching their third bowl appearance since Greg Schiano took over as head coach. But for the Terps' vets, they know what's still within reach through the rest of November.
“Obviously this is an important game for us, an opportunity for us to we've got two home games left and away game,” head coach Mike Locksley said on Tuesday. “This is playoff football is kind of what I told our team. It's our version of the playoffs meaning if we win, we advance. We lose, we make it a little tougher to advance. And so our players understand that. The pillars of our program is how we start and how we finish and obviously we've got some work to do to finish the right way, which we've been here before as a team.”
Even in a struggling season as Maryland sits below .500 overall for the first time since 2019, the chance to continue Maryland’s bowl streak is something that resonates with the veteran Terps.
“We’ve been able to do something very special around here lately and we want to keep that going,” running back Roman Hemby said. “A chance to extend our season if possible is something that we would really like to do to get some of our young guys more experience, more bowl practices and wait for us to continue this football family going. We take it one week at a time. We try to play our best football and put our rocks in the ocean but that’s something we’re definitely striving to reach.”
Maryland still has a chance to secure its fourth consecutive bowl appearance for the first time since the Bobby Ross era, while the Terps join Georgia, Minnesota and Texas Tech as the only Power Five schools to win a bowl game in each of the last three seasons. Linebacker Ruben Hyppolite was one of the current veterans who bought into the vision set forth by head coach Mike Locksley before, growing into a key part in the program’s transformation since.
As he prepares for one of his final games inside SECU Stadium after five seasons with the program, the chance to get back in the win column drives the Florida native.
“It’s vital. We have three one-game seasons. We got to get a win,” Hyppolite said. “So where my mindset is? I got to do all that I can to make sure that we get a win and where our team’s mindset is is on the same wavelength as mine. We’re just looking forward to getting a win.”
Kickoff is set for 6 PM.
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