After the 2-10 season the Maryland Terrapins had last year, I'd be happy with any bowl game. The fact that they quadrupled their win total from a year ago is a tremendous accomplishment in and of itself. Having said that, a bowl game victory would be some damn good icing on this cake, and a great thing for the program moving forward.
So let's take a look at the bowl games Maryland might be invited to at the end of the season. I'll be basing my analysis on this post from our Maryland blog, Testudo Times, which seems to have narrowed the possibilities down to two games, The against Tennessee in the Music City Bowl, or against the Fighting Irish in the Champs Sports Bowl. Let's start with the Vols.
The Music City Bowl is played in Nashville, so you can imagine that there would be far more orange in the stands than there would be red, black, yellow or white. The Vols would have a pretty big home field advantage in this game, and I think they would have a good chance to win it. It is my belief that if two teams have similar records and play in the ACC and SEC respectively, that the team from the SEC is better. But I guess I"ll be able to test my hypothesis if this is where the Terps end up playing.
The other option is the more intriguing one to me. Even though I hate Notre Dame, they draw more attention than any other team that isn't playing in a BCS Bowl. I also think that the Terps have a better chance of beating the Irish than they do the Vols in Nashville. They'd be able to get a lot of exposure from a win like that, and that is always good for the program.
But like I said earlier, just seeing the Terps play in a game closer to New Years Day is a win for me as a fan. But it would be nice to win one too.
Today's must-reads from around the SB Nation network:
- Hogs Haven on the Redskins' D, and what the loss to the Vikings means for their playoff chances.
- Federal Baseball on why the Nats might be making a mistake by waiting for the Winter Meetings to start talking deals with potential free agents.
- Testudo Times on Torrey Smith's record breaking performance on Saturday.
Today on SB Nation D.C.: Scott Jackson with the latest edition of Chain Reactions. Jack Anderson with more on the smallest player on the Redskins.