Maryland Terrapins Football: 2025 Season Review

The all-too-familiar recurring theme of early-season elation followed by inevitable late-season letdown returned to College Park in 2025. It was déjà vu as the Maryland Terrapins football team once again finished with a disappointing 4-8 record, won just one conference game, and missed out on a bowl for the second straight year.

Maryland Terrapins Football: 2025 Season Review

The Locksley Loop

As has become tradition under head coach Mike Locksley, the Terps started the season scorching hot, albeit against admittedly inferior competition, rattling off four straight wins to open the campaign. In consecutive triumphs over Florida Atlantic, Northern Illinois, Towson, and Wisconsin, Maryland’s average margin of victory was nearly 22 points per game. In those first four contests, the Terrapins offense averaged almost 33 points, and buzz was beginning to build around the team and freshman quarterback Malik Washington.

Unfortunately, those would be the only games that Maryland would win in 2025. The program would suffer eight straight losses to end the season on a decidedly sour note. The Terps defense specifically struggled down the stretch, giving up a whopping 39 points per game over their last five outings. Maryland was also particularly ineffective when it came to running the ball on offense, finishing with the Big Ten’s second-worst rushing attack after averaging only 104.3 yards per game on the ground. Without an effective running game or a defense capable of making stops, the Terrapins never found any balance on offense and were forced to air it out while seemingly playing from behind all season.

Freshman Class Hints At Bright Future

Washington led the Big Ten in passing attempts as a true freshman, showing flashes of superstar potential over his first twelve college starts while throwing for 2,963 yards with 17 touchdowns and nine interceptions. He also added another 303 yards rushing and four more scores on the ground. The two-time Big Ten Freshman of the Week was one of just four FBS true freshmen who passed for over 200 yards in 11 of 12 games, and his 2,963 passing yards were a new school record for a freshman. While the former Elite 11 Finalist did showcase some accuracy issues that need fine-tuning, Washington effusively proved to be one of the best newcomers in college football last season and looks well on his way to becoming a household name in 2026.

Like their quarterback counterpart, the rest of Maryland’s freshman class showed plenty of promise in an otherwise lost season. With both players battling through injuries, linebacker Sidney Stewart led the team with seven sacks and 10.5 tackles for loss, and defensive lineman Zahir Mathis added six sacks and 8.5 tackles for loss to pace the Terrapins pass rush. Freshman safety Messiah Delhomme also made his mark on both defense and special teams with 41 tackles, three pass breakups, and two blocked kicks.

Regardless of the underwhelming results of last season, the Terps 2025 freshman class showed a tremendous amount of potential that should give Maryland fans some hope for the future.

Same Faces, New Interpolations?

Despite the dreadfully depressing year and a chorus of calls from fans for a change in leadership, Maryland athletic director Jim Smith decided to double down on Locksley amid the Terps late-season slide, affirming that the much-maligned head coach will continue to lead the program and the Terrapins will instead attempt to step up their efforts in NIL and recruiting.

“We are working to strengthen our NIL support for 2026 and beyond, and have already seen success for next year,” Smith told ESPN. “We are prioritizing roster retention, recruiting, and competing in the transfer portal.”

Maryland is betting that continuity will pay dividends down the road and have already seen the immediate fruits of that labor, enticing elite local talent like five-star EDGE Zion Elee to stay home while also retaining much of it’s core for next season. With Coach Locksley occupying one of the hottest of seats in college football, the Terps must show massive improvement on defense and a firm commitment to the ground game if they hope to make a quick turnaround in the Big Ten in 2026.