Report: Previously Rumored Maryland-Texas Series to Start in 2017?

This fell through the cracks pretty well, it seems. Remember when Maryland was looking at playing Texas in a home-and-home starting in 2014, but then denied that any agreement had taken place? Well, the Terps might still play the Longhorns, but not so soon, according to the Austin American-Statesman, which drops this little nugget of info at the end of another scheduling piece:

Texas has not yet officially announced the deal but will play Maryland in 2017 at Austin and in 2018 at FedEx Field in Landover, Md.

You read that right: 2017. At least the deal got done, but this is some ridiculous early scheduling. They already have a game for 2018 on the docket. The next earliest game was in 2016, when Maryland will play Bowling Green. Anyway: wow, that's a long time away. Next year's incoming freshmen won't even be in College Park to see it.

Even though it was dropped so nonchalantly into the piece, it may be accurate. After all, the original WaPo piece said that the years on the original were wrong, and this would indicate that they were - by a longshot.

I guess it's good that Maryland's getting a little bit more time to rebuild their program, but to be frank that's so far off in the future that "more time" is useless. Maryland could legitimately rebuild their program and then fall back into a 4-win team in that timeframe, easily.

Here's the good news, though: the original deal was rumored to net both teams a $3mil payout up front. Whether or not that's still the case is unknown, but it would be undeniably awesome if it happened; Maryland would be given a lot more flexibility in their AD hire and their potential HC hire.