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Teams: Syracuse Orange (1-0, 0-0) vs. Maryland Terrapins (1-0, 0-0)
Day & Time: Saturday, September 7 at noon ET. (RETURN OF THE NOONER)
Extended Forecast: Mostly sunny, High of 82. Very little chance of rain.
Location: Maryland Stadium, College Park, Md.
Line: The line opened ‘Cuse minus-4, it’s already moved down to favoring the Orange by less than a field goal (-2.5) and a -120 money line.
TV/Streaming: ESPN,
Radio: Cuse.com, TK 99/105, WAER 88.3, Road - XM 201 (Streaming 964), Home - XM Streaming 969
Maryland blog: Testudo Times
Rivalry: Syracuse leads 19-15-2 (yeah, it’s that old and infrequent!)
Current Streak: Maryland, 1
First Meeting: November 13, 1920 (!), when the Terps came to Central NY to beat Syracuse, 10-7.
Last Meeting: In 2014, a Scott Shafer-led Orange squad lost to Maryland 34-20 at the beginning of a 1-9 stretch that would land the head coach on the hot seat and officially begins the Shafer Internet Wars.
Head Coaches: Syracuse — Dino Babers (4th year, 19-19 at SU); Maryland — Michael Locksley (1st year, 2-5 at Maryland)
Coach Bio: Locksley, like Dino Babers, is one of the nine African-American head coaches in the Power 5 right now. Also like Dino, Locksley comes with an offense-focused background from numerous schools, but most recently and prodigiously, as the offensive coordinator of Alabama. This is also his second stint as head coach of Maryland; in 2015, Locksley was the interim head coach of the Terps when Randy Edsall was relieved of his duties. He finished that campaign 1-5 and did not return to Maryland, heading to Tuscaloosa and join Nick Saban’s staff.
Last Year: The Terps went 5-7 on the season, 3-6 in the B1G. Their season was... unconventional. The preseason death of Jordan McNair led to the suspension of D.J. Durkin, with Matt Canada taking over the program. There were internal investigations, a ton of reports, but at the end of the day, Maryland was not deemed to have a “toxic culture.” Durkin was still fired and Canada finished out the season.
Last Game: If you haven’t heard, Maryland defeated FCS team Howard 79-0.
”Fear Me, I’ve Killed Hundreds of Timelords”: Redshirt Junior Quarterback Josh Jackson is going to get the headlines, but don’t sleep on sophomore Anthony McFarland Jr. The running back was second-team All-Big Ten last season, and set the Maryland record for single-season rushing yards by a freshman (1,034). He was used very sparingly in the opener versus Howard, so the Orange still don’t know how Locksley will utilize one of the Terps’ best offensive players.
If Syracuse Wins: COLLEGE GAMEDAY VS CLEMSON BABY (and of course, SU is 2-0 and remains ranked for another week).
If Syracuse Loses: It’s not that big of a deal; Maryland is close to ‘Cuse in most model projections, so losing to them on the road isn’t huge. Still, that likely means no GameDay, and the realization that 7-5/8-4 is more likely than 11-1 begins to set in for the fans who haven’t accepted this already.
Fun Fact: Maryland hasn’t defeated Syracuse in College Park since 1983. I’m sure we’ll hear plenty about that and the fact that these are two schools (among many) that switched conferences in the Great Realignment Area.