2024 Terps Football: Week 2 Vs. Michigan State

After beating UConn 50-7 last week in their 2024 opener, the University of Maryland hosts Big Ten Conference opponent Michigan State this Saturday.  (Game time, 3:30PM,

The Spartans are also 1-0, as they won 16-10 in their opener vs. Florida Atlantic.

Michigan State was 4-8 overall last year, 2-7 in Big Ten play.

That performance coupled with disclosures of sexual harassment ended Mel Tucker’s tenure as the Spartans Head Coach and launched the Jonathan Smith era.

Smith came to East Lansing after serving as Oregon State’s Head Coach since 2018.

The Importance Of This Saturday

It’s a Conference game, it’s a home game, and it’s a game where Maryland is favored (9 point favorite, ESPN’s Football Power Index gives MD a 82.5% chance of winning).

The FPI % feels a bit high to me.
MD should be favored, but I’m not sure by that much.
MD is more talented, and MD should win.
MD could wind-up winning going away like they did last year (a 31-9 win at Michigan State).
But in a conference game of two relatively equal programs; it’s not hard to imagine a closer tilt this year.

In the end, it doesn’t need to be pretty, but the outcome needs to be a Maryland win.
A loss here would continue to hound you throughout the season.
A win here, and you (the MD program) can continue to feel like you are on the ascension up, and building some separation from a program like MSU.

Regarding Last Saturday

There’s only so much you can take from last week’s beating of UConn.

One takeaway is that the Huskies remain pretty limited, even with all of their Powe 4 transfers in.
Another takeaway is that MD has plenty of talent on both sides of the ball.

The Terps legitimately have good ability.
There isn’t enough talented depth to expect MD to beat the real powers in the sport, but there is enough talent to believe a Top 25 finish is possible.
Finishing in the Top 25 would probably be an upset, but it’s not an implausible goal for this group.

MD made a big jump in the ESPN FPI National Rankings with the win.

MD’s skill position talent is solidly above above average.  The LB’s and Secondary are good.
MD’s O-Line is working in a bunch of new faces, but also has a lot of size. MD’s starting D-Line is capable.
Billy Edwards made his debut as MD’s starting QB and it went about as well as you could have hoped for.
The Junior was 20 of 27, for 311 yards, and 2 TD’s. He also ran for 39 yards on 5 attempts.
You could also see that MJ Morris, and Cameron Edge are good enough on their own to make plays, and utilize the skill position talent.
One of those skill position players being Tai Felton who had 178 yards and 2 TD’s over 7 catches.

The Terps ran for 248 yards against UConn on 46 attempts.
We knew that Roman Hemby and Colby McDonald were a good duo. It was fun seeing Freshman Nolan Ray immediately contribute.
The Terps had 11 different players make a catch (27 receptions total) for 381 yards.

Defensively, MD was also too much for Sparty, with Glendon Miller and Ruben Hyppolite both having intereceptions.
If you were going to pick at MD’s defensive effort, you could point out they didn’t have any recoded sacks.

PK Jack Howes was 3 of 3 on his FG attempts.  Did miss one of his five XP’s though.
P Bryce McFerson had a great day punting.

I loved Coach Locksley’s decision to prioritize getting a ton of guys into the game.
He let a lot of guys get their feet wet, and gain experience vs. someone wearing a different uniform.
That can only help the program later on.
MD won by 43 points, but the beating could have been even more severe had Locksley increased the snap count for the starters.

Michigan State Players Of Note

QB Aidan Chiles followed Coach Smith from Oregon State.
Against Florida Atlantic, the Sophomore was 10 of 24, for 114 yards, and 2 picks.
He was a consensus 4 star recruit.

Senior RB Kay’Ron Lynch had 101 yards on 9 carries last week.
In ’23, Lynch had 1,157 yards rushing, and had another 20 receptions for UMass.

Sophomore TE Michael Masunas (6’5, 258) had 2 catches last week.
Senior WR Montorie Foster had 3 catches last week.

Jr LB Wayne Matthews (Largo, MD, Old Dominion) was named Preseason 3rd Team All-Big Ten by Phill Steele.
Sr DL Khris Bogle had 1.5 sacks vs. Florida Atlantic.

Here’s a 2024 season preview for Michigan State from College Football News. 

Note in that preview that they keyed on this trip to MD as Michigan State’s key game stating, “…at Maryland, Sept. 7
It’s a winnable Big Ten game before dealing with a murderous conference run. This is early, and it comes before two non-conference games, but lose in College Park and there’s a real shot at an 0-5 Big Ten start. So who’s next? Ohio State, at Oregon, Iowa, at Michigan.”