COLLEGE PARK, Md.—Welcome to Friday night football on the East Coast, where highly anticipated conference home games in packed-to-the-gills stadiums turned into full-on nightmares for Maryland and Virginia Tech. Penn State and Duke, respectively, dropped their hammers, chasing out fans before the fourth quarter and winning by a combined 97-10 score.
This was not how it was supposed to go. The Terrapins welcomed its largest crowd since 2011, even moving in additional seating on the concourse. The last time they played here, they whipped then-top 25 Syracuse 63-20. The loss at Temple a couple of weeks ago was billed by the program as nothing more than an outlier performance.