Maryland Terrapins College Football Preview 2021: Keys To The Season
Maryland Terrapins Biggest Key: Offense
Stop someone from hitting the quarterback. It’s been a problem for a long, long, long time. From the 49 sacks allowed in 2016 on, Maryland hasn’t been able to keep teams out of the backfield – and it showed as quarterback after quarterback got banged up.
Maryland allowed over 30 sacks in four straight years before giving up 18 – 3.2 per game – over the five games.
The Terps have the devastating deep threat playmakers at receiver, and even through the backs are unproven, the running game should be fine with better blocking. Maryland has the star tackle in Jaelyn Duncan to start with, and it has plenty of size and options to play around with, but everyone needs time to work.
Maryland Terrapins Biggest Key: Defense
Start taking the ball away. Maryland has ten starters returning on D, a lot of depth, and it gets pressure in the backfield, but it’s not going to be a rock.
This isn’t going to be one of the Big Ten’s better defenses, but if the offense does what it’s supposed to do, it just needs to hold serve, not get gouged against the run, and make enough big plays to make up for the other issues.
The Terp D came up with three takeaways against Penn State. It took the ball away once in the other four games – the team lost the turnover margin in four of the five games.
Maryland has lost the turnover margin in 11 of the last 12 games with just 11 takeaways during the span.
Maryland Terrapins Key Player To A Successful Season
QB Taulia Tagovailoa, Jr.
Left tackle Jaelyn Duncan is the team’s best player. He’s the one who’ll be off to the NFL and he’s the one who’ll anchor the offense from his spot up front. However, Tagovailoa is the one who can take the Terps over and make them a big of a player.
Tua’s brother came over from Alabama and showed a spark with a huge day against Minnesota and a brilliant performance against Penn State. But he struggled against Indiana and couldn’t go against Rutgers.
Maryland has other options at quarterback, and it has a whole slew of areas it has to improve, but if No. 3 is amazing, everything else should work out.
Maryland Terrapins Key Game To The 2021 Season
West Virginia, Sept. 4
Winning a big game in the season opener hasn’t always been an indicator of a special year – ask the 2017 and 2018 teams that kicked things off with wins over Texas in each season – but for head coach Mike Locksley and this year’s team, getting by West Virginia would be a big deal.
With Howard to follow, beating the Mountaineers would lead to a 2-0 start with a trip to Illinois next. Win that, and with Kent State next there’s a chance to make a big splash before diving into the rough part of the Big Ten slate.
– Maryland Terrapins Schedule Breakdown & Analysis
2020 Maryland Terrapins Fun Stats
– Time of Possession: Opponents 34:37 – Maryland 25:23
– Penalties: Maryland 44 for 398 yards – Opponents 21 for 174 yards
– Rushing Yards: Opponents 230 – Maryland 145