SportsRatings 2014 College Football Pre-season Top 128
| Maryland Terrapins (Big Ten #5; East #4) |
 #25 |
2013 Results |
AP NR USA NR | Strength:#67 Success:#73 Overall:#67 |
| Record: 7-6 | Bowl: lost to Marshall 31-20 (Military) |
||
| 2014 Outlook |
Picks: AP NR | USA NR | Lindy's #59 | Athlon #48 | Steele #31 | ||
| Record: 8-4 |
Bowl odds: 95% Playoff odds: 1% | ||
We're pretty high on the Terrapins this season compared to everyone else. No poll votes at all, and #59 in Lindy's—but Phil Steele comes along for the ride, which is good company.
| Offense 8 ret. starters |
2013 Scoring Offense: #82 (raw) #80 (adjusted for opposition) |
| 2014 Projected Scoring Offense: #29 (adjusted) |
Maryland's offense makes probably the biggest jump of any team in our rankings, from below-mediocre to borderline top 25.
| Passing Game |
2013 Passing Rank: #51 (raw) #45 (adjusted) | 2013 Sacks Allowed (adj.): #65 |
| 2014 Projected Passing Rank: #12 (adjusted) |
2014 Sacks Allowed (proj.): #64 |
CJ Brown (2,242 yards, 13 TDs, 7 int) established himself as the quarterback last year, starting over Caleb Rowe (989 yards, 5:3) when he wasn't injured. Now a senior, he'll have his top four targets back: Levern Jacobs (640 yards), Stefon Diggs (587), Amba Etta-Tawo (500), and Deon Long (489). #5 Nigel King (450) transferred. With Rowe as backup along with Perry Hills who threw for 1,336 yards in 2012 (8:7) they are as rich at the position as they were poor in 2012 when starting a linebacker at QB due to injuries. We see a big upgrade in passing with Brown (hopefully) playing a full season. Top receiver Jacobs was involved in an assault case in late August which may impact his availability; this is not taken into account here.
| Rushing | 2013 Rushing Rank: #86 (raw) #76 (adjusted) | 2014 Projected Rushing Rank: #45 (adj.) |
Maryland returns pretty much every ball-carrier from 2013 led by Brandon Ross (776 yards) and QB Brown (576). The offensive line returns 3 starters, with senior Sal Conaboy joining junior Ryan Doyle and sophomore Michael Dunn. The ground game should rise to be above-average in 2014.
| 2013 Adjusted Stats: | Rush Defense: #65 Pass Defense per-game: #42 Per-attempt: #47 | ||
| Defense 9 ret. starters |
'13 Scoring Defense: #54 (raw) #53 (adjusted) | '13 sacks: #40 | '13 picks: #92 |
| '14 Projected Scoring Defense: #25 (adjusted) |
'14 sacks: #23 | '14 picks: #90 | |
The Terrapin defense should be much better than the injury-riddled unit that limped through 2013. All three starters on the defensive line are back including Andre Monroe (9.5 sacks, 7.5 tackles for loss). Three of four starting linebackers are present including Matt Robinson (9.5 tackles for loss); they do lose Marcus Whitfield (9 sacks), and backup Abner Logan is gone for at least half the year (suspension) while Alex Twine may have legal issues impact his playing time. Three starters return in the secondary, too, including top tackler Sean Davis (102 tackles). In all the top five tacklers are back and as mentioned the unit was plagued by injury and underperformed last year.
Special Teams/Situations
- Kicking Game: Kicker Brad Craddock (21 of 25 field goals) and punter Nathan Renfro (40.8 average) are both back.
- Return Game: Starting corner and main return man William Likely is back after averaging 26.0 yards per kickoff return and 12.8 per punt return, with one touchdown. Note that Stefon Diggs had two touchdown returns in 2012.
- Turnovers projection: Not much difference seen here.
- Injury correction: Maryland was hit very hard on both offense and defense last year, so the whole team was greatly underrated. This adds a correction of almost 3 full points per game to this year's rating.
Coaching/Recruiting 2014 Recruiting Rank: #63 2013 Recruiting Rank: #46
This year's class is small and not terrible high-ranked but it does have one superstar, offensive lineman Damian Prince, who should play right away. Another touted lineman, juco Larry Mazyck, did not qualify. Head coach Randy Edsall picked the right way to have 2-win, 4-win, and 7-win seasons: exactly in that order. The reverse and he would have been fired last year.
2013 Recap
The Terps started off 4-0 with the 4th win being a 37-0 shutout of West Virginia; that put Maryland into the top 25 and made the showdown with Florida State seem like a big deal, but it was a big dud as the Seminoles won 63-0. That had to hurt morale, and it hurt literally as the injuries started to pile up. The Terps managed to beat Virginia 27-26, but lost to Wake Forest, Clemson, and Syracuse badly. They somehow managed to beat Virginia Tech and NC State near the end to finish 7-5, but lost 31-20 to Marshall in the Military Bowl.
Last year's prediction: We ended up being right even if it took lots of unpredictable injuries to make it happen. We put Maryland #72 and projected a 6-6 year. Even our scoring offense and scoring defense numbers were pretty close. Game-by-game we got five games incorrect, though. The Terrapins were clearly much better than we thought, but were brought back down by injuries. That made them unpredictable game-by-game but roughly as good as we projected on the whole.
2014 Outlook
|
Maryland 2014 schedule & forecast |
||||||||
| 8/30 | Sat | vs. | James Madison | 99% | W | |||
| 9/6 | Sat | @ | South Florida | 92% | W | |||
| 9/13 | Sat | vs. | West Virginia | 82% | W | |||
| 9/20 | Sat | @ | Syracuse | 66% | W | |||
| 9/27 | Sat | @ | *Indiana | 35% | L | |||
| 10/4 | Sat | vs. | *Ohio State | 52% | W | |||
| 10/18 | Sat | vs. | *Iowa | 72% | W | |||
| 10/25 | Sat | @ | *Wisconsin | 36% | L | |||
| 11/1 | Sat | @ | *Penn State | 74% | W | |||
| 11/15 | Sat | vs. | *Michigan State | 49% | L | |||
| 11/22 | Sat | @ | *Michigan | 44% | L | |||
| 11/29 | Sat | vs. | *Rutgers | 87% | W | |||
|
Straight up: 8-4 Cume: 8-4 Bowl eligible: 95%
|
||||||||
Maryland plays four progressively-harder non-conference foes to kick off the year: James Madison is basically a gimme, South Florida is close to that even on the road, West Virginia should be a win, and Syracuse, while tougher, should be too. If they start off 4-0 it's a sign that they're going to be good—but they did the same thing last year before the injuries set in.
Next they face the only team we have improving more than they do, Indiana, and on the road that's a loss. It will make for a good comparison of the teams we are high on this year. Next they face Ohio State at home and, thanks to the news about Braxton Miller, it has become basically a tossup.
We favor them over Iowa at home, but not Wisconsin on the road; over Penn State in Happy Valley, but Michigan State at home is another tossup. Michigan on the road leans to the Terps in our book, and Rutgers is another win in the battle of new Big Ten teams.
That's a total of 7 wins plus 2 tossups, which makes 8-4 seem likely and the cumulative projection concurs. they can take it farther since no game is really out of reach, but since they're only the 4th-ranked team in the Big Ten East their chances of winning the conference are slim. They do register about a 1% chance of making the College Football Playoff, however.
More Previews • Full coverage of all 128 FBS teams
SportsRatings 2014 College Football Pre-season Top 128
Comments