Maryland-Minnesota Preview
The Maryland Terrapins (2-1) will host the Minnesota Golden Gophers (3-0) on Saturday to open up Big Ten conference play. The Terps are currently favored by 2.5 points.
Last week Maryland dropped their first game of the season to a previously winless Temple team in fairly embarrassing fashion. The rushing attack that led the Terps for the first two weeks was virtually nonexistent, and Kasim Hill looked bad even in the rare instances when he wasn’t immediately pressured. The defense looked terrible despite scoring all 14 of the team’s points, giving up chunk play after chunk play to a middling offense.
Minnesota comes into the game feeling pretty good, but we’ve seen this play out before. Last year, a 3-0 Minnesota team lost to the Terrapins and went on to finish the season 2-6 from there. Recent coaching hire PJ Fleck will also have to figure out how to deal with the loss of his star running back a couple weeks ago in order to exploit this Terps team’s weak run defense.
Anthony MacFarland was the lone bright spot for Maryland last week and he’s shown all season what an electric presence he can bring on offense, gaining large chunks every time he touches the ball. The Terps should lean on MacFarland against Minnesota’s sub-par run defense if they want to keep up with their stellar offense.
I’m obviously less confident than last week given how pedestrian the Terps looked against the Owls, but given this is a home game after getting smacked by a lesser team, I think Canada will show once again his ability to lead this team through adversity to pull out a close win. Kickoff is slated for noon on Big Ten Network.
