Home and Home Series With Maryland Added to Schedule

 It was reported a couple weeks ago that Rutgers will take on Maryland in a future home in home series, with the Scarlet Knights making the trip to College Park in 2014 and the Terrapins coming to Piscataway in 2019. Maryland is a close by team in a BCS conference, so it made a lot of sense adding a series with them in order to bolster their strength of schedule, which will be more important in the coming years with the new mini playoff system in place. The teams met in 2007 and 2009, with Maryland winning the first contest in New Jersey, and Rutgers returning the favor by beating the Terps in Maryland in '09.

Maryland is coming off a down year in which they suffered a ton injuries, and they have been bitten by the injury bug again. They will probably attain bowl eligibility this year though, as they are currently 4-3. It remains to be seen how head coach Randy Edsall will bring this program along going forward, especially in recruiting. He has long been known to dig for diamonds in the rough, but he has made some additions to his coaching staff at UMD to improve recruiting (including the hostile, loose cannon Mike Locksley), and he did pick up an instate 5 star receiver in Stefon Diggs in the last recruiting cycle. With strong instate talent and Edsall's track record as a coach, I would expect Maryland to be a solid, but unspectacular team when they meet Rutgers in a few years.

This series could also have added intrigue of Randy Edsall being a long time Big East villain (assuming he doesn't get fired before then). Many Rutgers fans, myself included, still despise Edsall from his time at Connecticut, especially after the way he left, so it would be fun getting to jeer and beat him once again.

Visiting Maryland could also help recruiting in that state, as it is similar to New Jersey in the fact that it has a lot of talented players up fro grabs despite being a relatively small state. Hopefully these games will get on national TV and bring fans to HPS Stadium.

Update 6:00 PM
This is the fifth out of conference game Rutgers has scheduled for 2014, with Howard, Penn State, Navy, and Tulane being the other four. With the Big East likely going to an 8 game conference schedule starting next year, something will have to give in the out of conference slate. They won't play 13 games. Navy isn't scheduled to join the league until 2015, so if they join earlier than expected, that would solve the situation, but if they don't, one of these opponents will have to be dropped. My guess is it would be Tulane.