2018 College Football Team Previews: Maryland Terrapins
Maryland Terrapins
Location: College Park, MD
Coach (interim): Matt Canada (0-0)
Stadium: Maryland Stadium (Capacity: 52,454)
CSJ Projections:
12th: Big Ten (6th East Division)
2nd: Maryland
74th: FBS
77th: Division I
2017 In A Sentence: Maryland started the season with a huge win at Texas, which seemed at the time to springboard the team to a good season but losing its top two quarterbacks to injury in the first four games cost the team and finished just 4-8 overall.
Biggest Shoes to Fill: Coach DJ Durkin was placed on administrative leave while the Maryland university system’s board of regents determine what role he played in the May 29 team workout that resulted in the death of offensive lineman Jordan McNair 15 days later. Durkin had a record of just 10-15 in his two seasons but with high rated recruiting, he very well could have the team’s fortunes turned around.
The biggest player to fill will be WR D.J. Moore, who was selected with the 24th overall pick in the NFL Draft by the Carolina Panthers. He was named the Big Ten Receiver of the Year after setting the Maryland single-season record for receptions (80) despite catching passes from four different quarterbacks.
Key Player: QB Tyrrell Pigrome (junior) or Kasim Hill (sophomore) were two signal callers that started the first four games of the season last year but both sustained torn ACLs. Both are expected to return and both would give the team better options than the last eight games last year for the Terps.
Fearless Prediction: Given the off-field issues, the team will be hard-pressed to come together. Expect a similar sub-.500 mark for the Terps as it had in 2017.
Originally from LaMoure, North Dakota, Kent is a 1996 graduate of North Dakota State University. His prior writing experience is over 15 years having previously worked with D2football.com, I-AA.org, and College Sporting News before coming to College Sports Journal in 2016. His main focus is college football is the Missouri Valley Football Conference within the Division I FCS. And in 2017, he began also to look at the FBS Group of Five conferences of the American Athletic, Conference USA, Mid-American, Mountain West, and Sun Belt.
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