COLLEGE PARK, Md. — It’s been a Maryland football season littered with low points. But this is unquestionably rock bottom.
The Terps fell, 54-7, to Nebraska in College Park Nov. 23, dropping them to 3-8 in 2019. It’s Maryland’s sixth straight loss, and most of those haven’t been close — the Terps have been on the wrong end of 59, 59, 47, 42, 31 and 26-point blowouts this season.
Nebraska entered this game 4-6 and was only a 6.5-point favorite. But Maryland made the Cornhuskers look like a powerhouse. The visitors held a 531-206 yardage advantage. They ran 87 plays and held the ball for 39:58. They sacked Maryland six times and allowed just seven completions.
And it all happened in front of the most depressing Terps home crowd in years. Even on senior day, the last home game of the season, Nebraska fans seemed to outnumber Maryland supporters from the opening kick. The student section was a deserted wasteland in the beginning and only dwindled further. It was cold. It was rainy. And the game was somehow the most miserable part.
“For me, it is [the low point of the season],” head coach Michael Locksley said after the game. “We have 16 seniors who have been through a lot during their time here, and for us to not play to our ability — we had a couple weeks to prepare for it — the thing that continues to sit in my craw is the fact that it’s us hurting us.”
Maryland found plenty of new ways to embarrass itself throughout this contest. The Terps fumbled on their first offensive play. They committed a personal foul on a punt that extended a drive, which ended in a touchdown. They botched the kickoff immediately following that touchdown, setting up a field goal. Two Maryland defenders bobbled a ball in the end zone and watched it fall into Nebraska receiver JD Spielman’s hands. These miscues led to a 24-0 deficit, and the Huskers scored 30 more unanswered points after that, just for good measure.
“Obviously today’s extremely disappointing,” senior offensive lineman Ellis McKennie said. “Didn’t want to have my last memory at Maryland Stadium be like that, but sometimes it just doesn’t go your way.”
This season started with Maryland beating Howard 79-0 and then-No. 21 (now 3-8) Syracuse 63-20. The Terps were ranked. They had a record number of student ticket requests for the Sept. 27 game against Penn State. Even after a disheartening loss at Temple, that Friday night contest was still highly anticipated. Then Maryland got demolished, 59-0. Plenty of other low points followed. And then this happened.
The big picture is only so much brighter. Locksley is now 6-39 as a head coach, counting his New Mexico tenure and an interim stint at Maryland in 2015. He’s been an ace local recruiter throughout his career, but the Terps’ 2020 class ranks 53rd in the country and doesn’t include any of the top 20 prospects in Maryland.
Still, it’s Locksley’s first season, so he’ll have a chance to keep moving the program forward. But there are still plenty of question marks. The quarterback position is more in flux now than it was in August, the offensive and defensive lines have struggled all year, and the secondary has continued to surrender big plays. Maryland is outside the top 100 nationally in both total offense and total defense.
It’s hard to get worse, but games like this show that there’s a long, long way to go in the other direction. And right now, all there is to do is hope.
“It’s tough that we’re putting that type of product out there for the fans, the fans who stand by us through some rotten seasons we’ve been having,” McKennie said. “I just beg the fans, keep believing in this team, keep believing in Coach Locks and believe in the culture that he’s trying to build here. This program will get turned around — I can promise that — and we will see some winning football in the future.”
Photo Credit: Kenya Allen/PressBox