Texas coach Tom Herman calls Maryland’s running backs ‘The Presidential Backfield’

In case you haven’t heard, Maryland plays a real football game against Texas this week. We’re excited.

First-year Longhorns coach Tom Herman has been fielding questions about the Terps for a while now, but in a media teleconference had some particularly positive words for Ty Johnson and Lorenzo Harrison, who were later named co-starters at running back on Maryland’s depth chart later Monday.

“That’s ‘The Presidential Backfield’ with Harrison and Johnson, if you will,” Herman said. They’re pretty special.”

Maryland caught wind of this pretty quickly, and came out with, well ... this.

Our friends at Terps Watch took a slightly different approach.

It’s a wonderful but confusing quote, really. An entire backfield cannot become president, and all of the Terps’ running backs are too young to be eligible. But it’s possible we could see a Johnson/Harrison ticket somewhere down the line, breaking tackles and taking votes to the house all across the campaign trail. They’d have our vote.

In other news

Maryland released its depth chart yesterday. Tyrrell Pigrome is the starting quarterback, which wasn’t a huge surprise. Here are some other things that caught our eye.

I hopped on a podcast with LandGrant Gauntlet, an independent Big 12 blog, to talk about Maryland-Texas. (I show up at the two-minute mark, in case you want to skip past the guy who thought Maryland was on Kansas’ football level.)

Kevin Durant was on a podcast, too, and he talked about why Maryland basketball’s Under Armour partnership doesn’t help the Terps with recruits who play on Nike-sponsored hoops circuits.

Here’s Don Markus on how DJ Durkin’s toughest test as Maryland head coach might be keeping the Terps’ attendance high if the wins don’t come soon.

Maryland men’s soccer beat Hofstra, 2-0, thanks to goals by Gordon Wild and ... Hofstra.

(Also, we found out last night that a GIF can be on our homepage. So expect those from time to time now. We’ll try not to go overboard.)

Maryland women’s basketball won its last two contests at the World University Games to finish 5-1 overall and fifth place in the medal round.

Former Terps second baseman (and current Rays prospect) Brandon Lowe was named his Single-A league’s Player of the Year.

For a final dose of football nostalgia before focusing on the present and future, Alex Littlehales has Maryland’s five best plays from last season.