The Terrapins are a win away from becoming eligible to play in the postseason for the third straight year, but players aren’t looking at the bowl schedule.
“We have a lot higher goals than becoming bowl eligible,” senior receiver Danny Oquendo said. “We should be bowl eligible next week, but further down the line, we think we should be in Tampa playing for the ACC Championship. It’s right there in our grasp, we just need to take it.”
Maryland (5-2, 2-1 ACC) welcomes North Carolina State (2-5, 0-3 ACC) for homecoming on Saturday afternoon at 3:30. The Terrapins are tied for first place atop the ACC’s Atlantic Division with No. 25 Florida State (5-1, 2-1), Boston College (5-1, 2-1) and Wake Forest (4-2, 2-1), which lost to Maryland last week. If the Terrapins win their remaining five games, they will play the winner of the ACC’s Coastal Division on Dec. 6 for the conference title and berth in the Bowl Championship Series.
“The expectations are higher now,” senior center Edwin Williams said. “It’s like a five-game playoff and if we lose, we’re out.”
If the Terrapins topple N.C. State at Byrd Stadium, it would mark the earliest a Maryland team has clinched a bowl game since 2001. That season — Ralph Friedgen’s first in College Park — the Terrapins won their sixth game on Oct. 11 against Georgia Tech en route to winning the ACC title and berth in the Orange Bowl.
By winning the Atlantic Division, the Terrapins are guaranteed — at worst — a bid to the Konica Minolta Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, Fla. Other potential bowl destinations for the ACC’s No. 3 and 4 teams are the Chick-fil-A Bowl in Atlanta and the Champs Sports Bowl in Orlando.
“I’d like to be 3-0 in the ACC, but I want to win the division — that’s what I want to do,” Friedgen said. “I want to get to the championship game.”
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