Texas in talks to schedule Maryland for home&home

…if UMD’s return trip to Austin is deferred until 2017 or afterwards, as we still have a wide-open 2014 OOC schedule.

Other than the fact that it seats 92K or so, there is nothing special about this in-the-middle-of-nowhere stadium. I wasn’t overly impressed the only time I ventured out there despite the fact that I was sitting unexpectedly in Jack Abramoff’s box I had pretty good seats.

Former Skins owners spent the last decade of his life trying to get a new stadium built. At one point in the early 90s, a deal was all but done to build a stadium in Alexandria at what was that point the largest piece of undeveloped land inside the Beltway. The deal fell through, though (and developed later as Potomac Yards for those familiar with the area), and Cooke settled for Landover (which he tried to rename Raljon in honor of his sons along the way, but that failed). In a rush to have the stadium completed before he died (an attempt which also failed), the stadium was built on the cheap in just 15 months or so.

When Snyder took over just a couple of years later, the stadium was already somewhat of a fixer-upper despite being practically brand new.

In a sense, it would be good if this proposed home-and-home could hold off for a few years, as I’m pretty confident that, by the end of the decade, Snyder will have built his answer to Cowboys Stadium on the current site of RFK.

UMD stadium is way too small and is just as inaccessible if not worse

It does seat 54K. I wouldn’t call that “way too small.” We did play at Wyoming last year, remember, and I don’t think Minnesota’s new stadium is any bigger.

I mean, I know it’s in Baltimore, which is kind of a disgusting city overall, but it’s a fairly modern and nice venue, is located right over by Federal Hill and the Inner Harbor, has a great gameday experience, metro/light rail connection at Camden, etc. If the game were going to be held off-campus anyway, I think M&T would be far better than FedEx.

The DCist source is an article from something called “Terp Talk” dated July 4 just stating that there’s a series with Texas, with no corroborating evidence. So this thing’s been out there now for 10 days, and the only cites reporting it are “Terp Talk” and DCist?

Not buying it.

At best, there are ongoing talks about a series, which someone leaked to Mr. Terp Talk, but there is no series yet. There very well could be a series by the time it’s all said and done, as, other than the 2015-16 problem discussed above, this makes a lot of sense: UMD fits the profile of the type of team and the type of school we’ve recently added to our schedule, and the East Coast alumni base has been waiting quite a bit for a visit since the last game at UNC in 2002.

But just because it might be in negotiations doesn’t mean that it will happen. I remember a lot of smoke about a supposed home and home with Boston College in the works a few years back, but ultimately there was no fire.

…on that Post link, there’s a Maryland fan making a comment who makes beergut look like the living embodiment of intelligence and rationality:

Take this from a born and raised Terp fan, now residing in Austin Texas with Longhorn fans to the left and right of me. The terps will not have to do too much to get ready for these upcoming matches with UT. If anythi8ng, they are on a more even playing field. Recruiting here (in Texas) has been lax lately, with a number of key recruits choosing schools like OU to go to because of that program over UT’s. UT is going to have a number of issues at both the quarterback and receiver positions for a number of years. UT has coaching issues too. Brown was lucky to have kids like Ricky, Vince and in some ways Colt, but I think those days are over and we will see just what coaching ability he has. All I’m saying is that I know that the Turtle has some issues to resolve, but they shouldnt, nor should the fans be worried about UT. (at this point)

And now I know that you get your sports news from DCist, I can stereotype you in the future in oh-so-friendly ways. :)

We don’t play on the east coast very often.