Maryland at Illinois Preview
The Maryland Terrapins (4-3) will travel to Champaign to play the Illinois fighting Illini (3-4) on Saturday in Big Ten conference play. The Terps are currently favored by 18 points.
Yesterday the findings of the investigation into Marylands’ alleged toxic football culture were released. Essentially the report found both the university administration and the program leadership to share some of the blame for a culture that wasn’t technically toxic, but put students in bad situations through intimidation from speaking out about problems. Decisions on the futures of DJ Durkin and other members of his staff and the administration are expected to be announced in the coming weeks.
Last week Maryland fell flat in their most important game of the season thus far, scoring zero points and registering just over 100 yards of offense at #19 Iowa. Kasim Hill was pulled late in the game for his ineffectiveness, although Tyrell Pigrome hardly stopped the bleeding, gift-wrapping a defensive Iowa touchdown in one of the more embarrassing displays i’ve seen in my four years as a student.
Illinois comes into the matchup limping as well after getting blown out last week at Wisconsin. The Fighting Illini are still looking for their first conference win outside of Rutgers. (who really doesn’t count at this point) Lovie Smith is understandably on the hottest of seats, as many in the college football industry believe he could be on his way out should Illinois not make a major turnaround soon.
Maryland running backs are likely licking their chops at the opportunity to face this defense, which is one of the worst in the power 5 conferences, allowing over 220 yards on the ground per game. Ty Johnson, the leader of these backs, has had a perfectly volatile season, with boom and bust weeks perfectly alternating every other game thus far. As such, he is certainly scheduled for a boom in this matchup after his putrid 15 yard performance last week.
I generally don’t expect any kind of success from a Durkin/Canada team on the road but Illinois is really, really, REALLY bad this year. They have yet to stop any relatively competent team on defense and can’t score at a high level. Maryland definitely has the tools to win handily against the home team, but given the road environment I expect a win by something like two possessions. Should the Terps win they would be in prime position to earn a bowl, needing just one win over the last four games which include two home games and a matchup with similarly-maligned Indiana.
Kickoff is set for 3:30pm tomorrow on Big Ten Network.
