Maryland football opens as 48.5-point favorite for season opener vs. Howard

The Maryland football team is favored by 48.5 points in its season-opening game against Howard, according to European sports book 5dimes. (You’ll need to make an account to see for yourself, which Testudo Times is in no way recommending.) Kudos to Jeff Ermann of Inside Maryland Sports for first spotting this on Monday.

We’ve treaded over this before, but anyhow. Howard is an FCS team, and not a particularly good one at that. The Bison went 1-10 last year and lost 76-0 to Boston College, which didn’t win an ACC game and turned out to be one of the worst Power 5 teams in recent memory. (The Bison also lost 49-0 to Appalachian State, a perfectly good Sun Belt foe but a Sun Belt foe all the same.)

Maryland is paying Howard $325,000 for the right to have basically a freebie win to open the season. Playing against a 48.5-point spread will probably make for the best competition at the Sept. 3 game.

In other news

Maryland’s in the hunt for local defensive end Tyree Johnson.

Profiling Antwaine Richardson, the freshman defensive back.

Some Maryland baseballers had tough MLB Draft calls to make.

Maryland reportedly offered a 2017 three-star center, Ejike Obinna.

Via Maryland, this video about Brenda Frese and her team heading to Italy:

Have a terrific Tuesday.