Story By: Erin Zollars
Photos By: Sol Tucker
College Park, MD–
Today for the first time we had a chance to take a look at the 2017 Maryland Terps football squad as D.J Durkin gets ready for a tough season opener against Texas on the road.
It didn’t take long for the media to ask Durkin what he expected from his squad opening on the road against the notable power house Longhorns.
” You have to win games on the road, it doesn’t matter if it is the first game or the fifth game or the season, so we are not looking too much into the game with Texas, other than they have a very good team,” said Durkin.
“I’ve been very pleased with how our guys have handled practice, our tempo. It’s been really good,” Durkin said before practice Wednesday, the first one this year open to the media. “Our older guys have a real good understanding of what we want, good leadership.
“The young guys we brought in, there’s a lot talking about the recruiting class and all that. Those guys are good football players. They do a nice job of learning and coming along and competing. It’s been good. Obviously there’s a lot of work to do, a long way to go.”
The main concern for the Terps has been who will make the start at quarterback for the Texas game? Kasim Hill will be challenging redshirt freshman Caleb Henderson for the starting job, but it is unclear who Durkin will give the nod to come September 2nd.
Durkin did credit his depth of the team this year. He stated that most of his guys were young last season with limited on field action.
The Terps challenge against Texas will show this team what it will take to make any kind of run in the Big Ten this season. Their second game against Towson on September 9th will be just be either a regroup, or a chance to go 2-0 to start the season.