Maryland Closing Arguments: Optimism is Hard

I. Case History and Opening Statement

A. Case History

Your Honor, I must admit that my relative knowledge involving the traditional on-goings of a court preceding are sub-par at best. The following presentation will more closely resemble the ramblings of a child who stumbled upon his uncle’s liquor cabinet than it will the thoughts of a rational thinking grown-adult human being. Maryland football won five games last year, which was one more than they won the year prior! Thus, sadly giving us a rare instance in which we, collectively, were unable to “blame Canada”. Maryland, in general won the games they should have, and lost the games they were expected to, and we got to piss off Texas again, and even gave those pesky Buckeyes a bit of a scare. Maryland football did not impress or disappoint, perhaps a result of their middling record, or perhaps the result of an encompassing apathy that blankets most Maryland football fans, an unfortunate side-effect of more than a decade of overwhelming mediocrity.

B. Opening Statement

Despite my benign malaise, there exist some among us that think Maryland football, this year, might just have what it takes to compete in the Big Ten East. The depth at the offensive skill positions is plentiful (if we ignore that many consider the quarterback position to be one that requires “skill”), we have a new head coach with a second lease on life trying to resurrect his home-town program after a 2018 off-season in which....things happened. Anthony McFarland looks to break out in his Sophomore season, QB transfer Josh Jackson looks to gracefully hurdle over the hilariously low bar our previous quarterbacks have set since joining the Big Ten five years ago. Since I reside in a bottomless bit of hopelessness and despair, I will ask that you take into consideration a second opinion, from one of my Maryland cohorts, DJ:

Ahem...your honor, it appears my colleague DJ shares my bleak outlook, I will ask that you hear out a third colleague, RyanB3

RyanB3: Yo Mr. Judge man, Maryland football is going to be the shit son. Mike Locksley got as all #LockedIN and we be recruitin the DMV like never before! Penn State? Garbage. Michigan? Garbage. Ohio State? Uber garbage. Look for Maryland to go 10-2 this year babyyyyyy.

Your honor, upon further consideration, I would please ask that Ryan’s remarks be stricken from the record.

II. Discovery

A. What we’ve Written About Maryland this Off-season

2019 Big Ten Uniforms

2019 Maryland Basketball Preview

I’m just going to stop right there, because uniforms and basketball is all you really need to know about Maryland.

B. What we’ve Learned from Pop Culture

That guy from Wedding Crashers was half-right.

III. Schedule of Events

August 31: vs Howard Bison

September 7: vs Syracuse Orange

September 14: at Temple Owls

September 27: vs Pennsylvania State

October 5: at Thee Rutgers

October 12: at Purdue Boilermakers

October 19: vs Indiana Hoosiers

October 26: at Minnesota Golden Gophers

November 2: vs Michigan Wolverines

November 9: at Some Ohio State University

November 23: vs Nebraska Cornhuskers

November 30: at Michigan State Spartans

Remarks: Your Honor, as you can see, Maryland hes a multitude of opportunities to get to the elusive “Land of Sunshine, Rainbows and Six-Wins” in August, September and October. Howard, Syracuse, Rutgers, Purdue, Indiana, Minnesota and maybe even Penn State on a random Friday night all, in some ways, are obtainable. November? Oh, I wouldn’t worry about November, while technically those games have to be played, the results are already certain.

IV. Emotional Plea

I would get on my knees and pray to a higher power that Maryland gets to six wins this season, but again, my overt apathy prevents me from taking such drastic measures. All-in-all, Maryland football has a lot of talent, and perhaps the pieces will fit this year. I ask that you ignore our short-comings on both the offensive and defensive line, something that isn’t even all that important when it comes to Big Ten football, and I ask that you ignore the head coaching track record of one Mike Locksley. I ask that you ignore the insanely difficult task we face in beating almost any other team in the Big Ten East and by the grace of god let us into a bowl game.

Honestly, your Honor, I mostly look forward to Maryland fans calling for Mark Turgeon’s head to be placed on a spike outside McKeldin library after we only beat Notre Dame by 8 points to move to 9-1 on the season because we are the best basketball program to have ever existed and anything short of perfection is absolute failure.

V. Verdict

Maryland football could win, like seven games this year! They probably won’t. Here is what others thought.

87Townie: 4-8 (2-7)

AaronYorke: 3-9 (1-8)

babaoreally: 5-7 (3-6)

beezer07: 4-8 (2-7)

BRT: 4-8 (1-8)

Boilerman31: 4-8 (2-7)

BrianB2: 3-9 (1-8)

Brian: 5-7 (2-7)

Candy: 4-8 (1-8)

DeadRead: 4-8 (2-7)

MNW: 3-9 (1-8)

Ray: 2-10 (0-9)

Stew: 3-9 (1-8)

Thump: 3-9 (1-8)

WSR: 5-7 (3-6)

I would like to thank all of you for being mildly more optimistic than I am. Leave it to Ray the Rutgers guy to hold out hope that by some chance his team won’t be the worst in the Big Ten this year. Who am I to shit on a man’s dreams though. Everyone casually mock me in the comments section for not remembering how to properly insert a table into articles.