In the August/September 2022 issue of PressBox, I asked the question, “What qualifies as progress for Maryland football?”
The concept of the column was to acknowledge before the season began that the Terrapins probably wouldn’t be competing for a Big Ten title, requiring us to set more reasonable barometers for a program attempting to move forward.
I came to the conclusion that the standards might be slightly different for two groups of observers.
For fans who are inclined to pay attention to and care about Maryland football no matter what, yes. Finding six wins and at least threatening the likes of Ohio State, Michigan and Wisconsin would probably be enough to maintain interest and belief in the trajectory of the program.
For the more casual fan, probably not. That group probably can’t be impressed without seeing the win total tick up, specifically via a win against a notable opponent. That group would be more likely to say something along the lines of, “If they can only win six games with the best quarterback they’ve had in 20 years, they’ll never do anything that matters.”
So here we are. Maryland did indeed clear the bar of “six wins and at least threatening the likes of Ohio State, Michigan and (well, not actually) Wisconsin.” But did the Terps do enough to win over the second group? That’s the group that might have come out for the Ohio State game but probably doesn’t even remember that there was an SMU game. It’s the group that is less inclined to simply “buy in” because, well, because those fans are aware of the history of Maryland football and you know what? It’s hard to blame them.
But I think that second group should be willing to acknowledge the progress made by the Maryland program this season. I think that skeptics should at least consider the possibility that the program has at least been stabilized and may well be on a trajectory that remains upward.
The most obvious signs of progress are the (slightly, but still) improved record and somewhat more prominent bowl victory as well as the legitimate battles against College Football Playoff semifinalists Ohio State and Michigan. But it goes a fit further than that. In 2021, Maryland’s six Big Ten losses were by an average of 30 points. In 2022, the Terps’ five conference losses came by an average of just 13 points. They were involved in only two non-competitive games all year.
I realize that’s not much of a bar but, you know, we are where we are.
It’s relevant that the Terps finished it off with a somewhat surprising win against No. 23 NC State in the Duke’s Mayo Bowl. Given how many players they were without, this was a significant sign. Skeptics might suggest that whatever incremental progress Maryland made, this year was more about the presence of quarterback Taulia Tagovailoa and such a spectacular wide receiver room (Rakim Jarrrett, Dontay Demus, Jacob Copeland) than about the status of the program that Michael Locksley has built on the whole.
But Maryland beat a legitimate ACC opponent (playing what was essentially a home game) despite the fact that Tagovailoa didn’t play particularly well and, probably not coincidentally, didn’t have those receivers. That shows a sign of a program establishing itself as being more significant than a player or a handful of players.
That’s what happens when a program is taking steps forward and is on an upward trajectory.
Look, this still isn’t going to be easy to sustain. Tagovailoa still has a decision to make about his future. While not flawless, Tagovailoa has been head and shoulders above any other quarterback the school has seen for the better part of two decades. Losing him would hurt significantly and require either Billy Edwards to have to make a serious jump or perhaps more good portaling fortune.
But it isn’t just Tagovailoa. While Octavian Smith Jr. made a nice touchdown catch in the bowl game, that position is likely to take a step back, even if only because the room was so remarkable this season. Additionally, the Terps will lose top defensive backs Jakorian Bennett and Deonte Banks and top offensive linemen Jaelyn Duncan and Spencer Anderson.
The next step as a program is proving that it can replenish. The next step is proving sustainability. Ralph Friedgen was awarded an amount of grace for back-to-back five-win seasons in 2004 and 2005 because his first three seasons featured an ACC championship and significant wins in the Peach Bowl and Gator Bowl. These first few Locksley teams haven’t quite banked as much to this point. Taking even a slight step back would be devastating to the program’s footing.
Locksley and his staff and players should have earned at least some amount of investment from even the casual portion of this fan base. But they need to keep providing return on that investment. There’s something happening. It still seems unlikely that it will ever lead to Maryland regularly competing year in and year out with the top programs in the conference. But it doesn’t seem impossible that the Terps couldn’t trend closer to those top teams than the bottom of the league and let the chips fall where they may in coming seasons.
Photo Credit: Kenya Allen/PressBox