What the opponent is saying: Syracuse has its ‘hands full’ against the Terps

Ahead of Maryland football’s game against No. 21 Syracuse, we decided to take a look at what the opposing side is saying about the battle to come. Testudo Times will be starting this as a new series each week.

Here’s what the Orange had to say about the Terps.

Coach Dino Babers on what he saw from Maryland last weekend: “Obviously, they had a fantastic outing, I think they set all kinds of scoring records with the shutout. ... We wish we had an offensive outing the way their offense played along with the way their defense played. ... Our eyes are wide open, and based off of how we played and how they played, I could see how people could have them favored.”

Babers on overlooking this week with Clemson ahead: “The last time I saw this team on TV, they had a different head coach. They had different coaches and I thought they were about to beat Ohio State. That's how good their personnel is. And I don’t feel like they’ve lost that much personnel, and they went and got a quarterback from Virginia Tech and a linebacker from Clemson and a linebacker from Ohio State and another wide receiver from Virginia Tech and another tight end from Buffalo. You know it’s portal transfer over there. So they’ve reloaded with a lot of fantastic players on a team that already had a lot of players that were good enough to almost beat Ohio State last year. We’ve got our hands full and we’re playing them at their place.”

He continues on the Terps’ talent: ”(Maryland) is a team with a lot of good football players. Coach Locksley does a nice job of recruiting the DMV as an area and it’s an area we also recruit. We have a lot of kids from that area. ... It’s going to be a very close contest and we definitely have our hands full.”

Here is the rest of Baber’s press conference:

The following answers come from videos produced by Syracuse’s media department.

Defensive lineman Josh Black on whether he’s concerned with the Terps’ scoring: “79 points against anyone is still a lot of points. We’re watching film, they have really good skill players. We’ve just got to kind of match them. We’ve got to hit them in the mouth really quick, we got to set the tone early and we can’t let them get ahead of us.”

Linebacker Lakiem Williams (same question): To be honest, I’m not really worried about it. They played against Howard. Howard’s a good team, Maryland’s a good team, but I believe in our defense. I believe in what we can do, so that doesn’t really bother me.”

Running back Moe Neal on the matchup: “We heard the score on the sideline and we were like, ‘Dang.’ That’s a very talented team over there and I’m pretty sure they’re going to be fired up, ready to play. … We’ve got to come ready to play too.”