Preview: Maryland football travels to take on No. 1 Oregon

Photo by Maryland Athletics

To kick off the final third of the season, Maryland football (4-4, 1-4 Big Ten) travels west to face No. 1 Oregon (9-0, 5-0) on Saturday at Autzen Stadium. The Terps are coming off their bye and a 48-23 loss at Minnesota.

Mike Locksley’s squad is just two wins away from clinching a fourth straight bowl game but faces all .500 or better teams. In order to do this, Maryland’s offense must find consistency.

In the loss to Minnesota, Billy Edwards Jr. threw for a season-low 201 passing yards and 54% completion rate. Maryland fell behind 21-0 early in the first quarter following two Edwards interceptions and struggled to play catch up.

“The biggest thing for me is just controlling what I can control,” Edwards said. “Those turnovers [Locksley and I] have talked about but… the conversation and the message has been the same. As the quarterback, as the leader of the offense, the play starts with me and ends with me so I just gotta continue to make sure to do to the best to my ability controlling what I can control.”

Redshirt sophomore MJ Morris was a lone bright spot after coming in for Edwards in the fourth quarter. He finished a near-perfect 7-for-8 with 122 yards and two touchdowns in the quarter.

Meanwhile, Minnesota quarterback Max Brosmer had a career day and picked apart the depleted Maryland defense. The New Hampshire transfer ended his day with a season-high 320 passing yards with four touchdowns, completing 79% of his passes.

The matchup gets more difficult this week as the defense faces Heisman candidate Dillon Gabriel. The senior leads the Big Ten in passing yards (2,665), passing touchdowns (19), completion percentage (74.8%) and passing yards per game (296.1).

“[Gabriel] makes them go. He’s a really talented player,” Locksley said, “All the kid does is make plays… he extends [plays] in the pocket.”

The Ducks also have a strong rushing attack led by junior Jordan James who is third in the Big Ten with 917 yards. James averages 5.8 yards a carry and has found the endzone in seven of Oregon’s nine games.

“This is the first group of running backs where these guys make the run game go. Typically the o-line makes it go,” Locksley said. “These two running backs [James and Noah Whittington] are both power, downhill, attack.” 

Defensively, Oregon is allowing just 15.8 points per game and is great at getting to the quarterback. As a unit, it has 25 sacks which is tied for the second-best mark in the conference.

The pass rush combined with a stout secondary allows just over 172 passing yards a game and has allowed six passing touchdowns all season. The Ducks are a little worse against the run, allowing 121.4 yards per game.

This does not bode well for the Terps, who generate most of their offense in the air.

“We have to play above our abilities,” Locksley said, “What we’ve got to do is play smart. We’ve got to go out and play together and we got to execute because it’s going to come down to execution.”

Maryland will need to play extremely clean all around for a chance to beat Oregon in the first-ever matchup between the programs. The game kicks off at 7 p.m.