Let’s take a look at Maryland’s schedule for the 2020 college football season.

Saturday Sept. 5 vs. Towson

Saturday Sept. 12 vs. Northern Illinois

Saturday Sept. 19 at West Virginia

Saturday Oct. 3 vs. Minnesota

Saturday Oct. 10 at Indiana

Saturday Oct. 17 at Northwestern

Saturday Oct. 24 vs. Wisconsin

Saturday Oct. 31 vs. Rutgers

Saturday Nov. 7 at Michigan

Saturday Nov. 14 vs. Ohio State

Saturday Nov. 21 at Penn State

Saturday Nov. 28 vs. Michigan State

 

The good news for Maryland is that there are familiar faces back, including Josh Jackson at QB while Lance LeGendre will be right up there in the battle for the starting job under center and it’s up for grabs considering how poor Jackson’s form got after week 2 last season, finishing the year with a sub-50% completion percentage and just making it over 1,000 yards passing last year. The bad news is that Maryland has big shoes to fill on offense as their top two running backs are gone as Anthony McFarland Jr. and Javon Leake combined for over 1,500 all-purpose yards on offense and a huge chunk of Maryland’s rushing offense last year. Tayon Fleet-Davis got experience but has to get past off-field issues and Jake Funk is coming off of his second season-ending knee injury in as many seasons. Defensively, the Terps lost three of their top four tackles from last year, but 9 of the top 13 overall were underclassmen so there’s a plus.

The win total for Maryland is set at 3.5 and to be honest, I have a hard time seeing Maryland getting a conference win this season. Even if you mark down Towson and maybe Northern Illinois as wins, West Virginia, Indiana and Northwestern on the road are far from cakewalks, Minnesota and Wisconsin at home are probably losses and Rutgers is bound to be better but that game could be their best chance in conference. And forget about the murderers’ row in November. The offense is decimated with four receivers leaving to transfer, and when you’re trying to improve on an offense that averaged only 12.5 points per game outside of their wins against Howard, Syracuse and Rutgers, that doesn’t really help much. I think it’s a three win year at best for Maryland, so I’ll take the under 3.5 wins for the Terrapins this season.