Maryland football: Preview, how to watch regular-season finale at Rutgers
Maryland football is set to conclude its 2023 regular season Saturday, traveling to face Rutgers on the road.
Both teams are 6-5 overall and 3-5 in the Big Ten, with the winner securing a fourth-place finish in the Big Ten East, which is in its final year of existence. While Big Ten matchups will be a revolving door with no divisions when the league expands to 18 teams next season, the Terps and the Scarlet Knights will still play each year moving forward. Next season’s matchup will not be the regular-season finale – it will take place on Nov. 16 – but the Maryland-Rutgers matchup is one of 12 protected by the conference on an annual basis.
Maryland has had great success in the recent history between the programs, winning 37-0 in last year’s finale in College Park. The Terps have won four of their last five games against Rutgers, losing at home in 2020 without Taulia Tagovailoa and playing with quarterbacks Eric Najarian and Lance LeGendre. A win Saturday would give Maryland its third straight seven-win season for the first time since 2001-03 and its most road wins in a season since 2014.
Here’s what you need to know about how to watch, follow and listen to Saturday’s game.
Kickoff: 3:40 p.m.on Saturday, Nov. 25 at SHI Stadium in Piscataway, New Jersey
TV: Big Ten Network – Connor Onion (play-by-play), Matt Millen (analyst), Elise Menaker (sideline)
Radio: Maryland Sports Network: One Maryland App, WJZ-FM 105.7 (Baltimore), The TEAM 980 AM (D.C.), Sirius XM Channel 136 – Johnny Holliday (play-by-play), Steve Suter (analyst)
Stream: FuboTV
Live Stats: Link
Betting Line: Maryland -1.5 (-120 money line), O/U 44.5 (DraftKings Sportsbook)
Maryland and Rutgers both joined the Big Ten in 2014, and the programs have dealt with some of the similar issues in their 10 years in the conference. Maryland head coach Mike Locksleymet with the media Tuesday, and he talked about some of the similarities between the programs.
“You’re the new kid on the block,” Locksley said. “You come in, you know, we've been a part of this league since 2014 like they have. It’s not – when you're new, you get the bottom of the scheduling is always tough. It's hard. We both have similar challenges in that we're trying to grow programs against a conference that has quite a few teams that are what most of us would consider blueblood programs … You go to travel to Nebraska and you see they’ve had 395 straight sellouts and as a coach, you look at that and think, ‘Man, they've had some lean years but they still, their support’s still there.’ So we both faced similar challenges. We're in major metropolitan areas. Everybody comes and recruits in our backyards. And we're grinding to develop programs to compete for championships.”
Led by head coach Greg Schiano, Rutgers is in the midst of its best season since its first year in the Big Ten. The Scarlet Knights will go bowling for the second time in three years, though its last appearance was in the 2021 Gator Bowl as a replacement team; it finished 5-8 that season.
Rutgers has relied on a strong rushing attack and an overall stout defense this season. The Scarlet Knights are fifth in the Big Ten in rushing yards per game (163.2), and Kyle Monangai is the conference’s second-leading rusher with 197 carries for 981 yards and seven touchdowns. Quarterback Gavin Wimsatt is just the 10th-leading passer in the Big Ten, but he has been a threat with his legs, ranking 17th in the conference with 440 rushing yards plus seven scores on the ground.
The Scarlet Knights have the sixth-best scoring defense (19.1 points allowed per game) and fifth-best total defense (296.9 yards allowed per game). Rutgers has been especially strong defending the pass game with the third-best air defense in the Big Ten, which will pose a tough test for a Maryland offense that leads the conference in pass attempts.
All eyes will be on Tagovailoa Saturday as he is in good shape to become the Big Ten’s all-time leading passer. Tagovailoa has 10,895 career passing yards and sits fourth among the conference’s all-time leaders. He needs just 269 passing yards against Rutgers to surpass former Purdue quarterback Curtis Painter for the No. 1 spot.
The 2023 season has not been the special campaign that Terps fans have been yearning for, losing disappointing games to Illinois and Northwestern and failing to knock off any of Michigan, Ohio State or Penn State. However, ending on a high note will clinch a third straight winning record for the Terps, which was preceded by a six-year streak with a losing record. As the Terps continue to strive toward that next step, a better bowl destination – catch up on that here – could also be on the line.
