Can Maryland Terrapins Football Take A Step Forward, or Is This As Good As It Gets?

At long last, we’ve failed.

That’s right, your intrepid podcast crew has failed to get a team contributor for Maryland Week. We tried, but couldn’t come up with anyone who cared that much about Maryland.

Let’s consider, though, what happens when Maryland fans have allowed themselves to hope recently:

In 2019, the Terps made a HUGE deal out of a game against Penn State in Week 4 after smashing #21 Syracuse 63-20. A baffling 3-point road loss to Temple was...mostly overlooked by the Maryland faithful, not because they thought it didn’t matter but because they didn’t want to let go of the excitement building.

Penn State won 59-0.

Last year, Maryland had a couple of escapes against West Virginia and Illinois to go along with a decisive Kent State win and their annual pummeling of Howard. Taulia Tagovailoa looked like the absolute God’s truth at quarterback for the 4-0 Terps. A Friday night home game against eternally 8.5-4.5 Iowa provided a venue for the turtles to prove their legitimacy.

Seven turnovers later, the goalposts had moved all the way to just trying to struggle to a bowl.

Maryland finds itself at a crossroads heading into year 4. An established starter at quarterback will have a couple of star receivers to work with, but offensive line recruiting hasn’t led to consistent play and some alarming attrition has put the future of the defense in doubt. It’s true that Mike Locksley has brought in some high end talent, but has he perhaps neglected the foundation?

Oh and also Maryland Basketball happened, let’s talk about that briefly.