Turtledroppings.com – Maryland Football And Basketball Blog

As hot as it is today, the start of college Football isn’t nearly as far off as the weather might indicate. Heck it is already mid July, in a month things will be in full swing as teams prepare for the start of the season. As a younger man, a month seemed like a long time, now days a month passes in the blink of an eye.

So to prepare myself for the start of the 2011 Football Season, I am going to take a look at the upcoming schedule and rank my most anticipated games of 2011, starting from the least anticipated to the most. Your opinion may differ from mine, and that is fine, heck feel free to chime in on the comments, but here is how I’m anticipating 2011:

October 1, 2011 Towson comes to College Park. In some states these in state rivalries have real traction, me personally I don’t get them. I’m from Maryland, why would I not want another football team from Maryland to excel? Regardless of my thoughts, the Towson game might as well be called “Clean Out the Garage” Weekend. I can build up a lot of good will around the house by passing up a Maryland home game, and October 1 may be time to start banking.

September 24, 2011 Against Temple. This isn’t our fathers Temple squad and now days they can actually beat some decent teams. Still though, hard to get fired up for this one. Then again, when we win I can rub it in the face of all the people I know who love Temple Football….oh wait. Still better than D 1A or whatever they are called now, but I won’t be tossing and turning in anticipation the night of September 23rd.

Now it gets a little tougher: October 8, 2011 at Georgia Tech. Of the major games we have left, this was the easiest to rank this low. First I won’t be traveling to Atlanta so that is one strike. Second is that damn triple option. I hate the triple option. Third, GT is in the Coastal Division so it lacks the importance of a division game. Fourth, I don’t have any beef with Georgia Tech. As far as ACC Schools go, they are pretty benign. I guess that is all I have. I know 10th sounds kind of low, but truth be told, from GT on, I’m pretty excited for each and every one of these match ups.

November 11, 2011 at Wake Forest. Hard to get excited for road games. Granted, unlike Tech, this is a Divisional Match Up, but I only know 1 WF grad, and if you have to lose a Conference game, losing to Wake is probably the way to go. Most people in my office who would taunt me, don’t even know what state Wake is in, they are like the Tampa Ray’s of the AL East. When is the last time a Rays fan got in your face? I’m guessing never.

October 29, 2011 the Boston College Eagles come to town. OK, from now on I can’t even pretend to bad mouth these matchups nor contain my excitement. This should be a good one. I don’t care what BC’s record is when we play them, they are always tough. This should be no different. This is a big Atlantic Match up which will say a lot about how our season will go. Plus there is only room for one team in the ACC north of the Potomac, and we aren’t looking for some generic bird mascot that a thousand other sports teams use.

Finally (for today anyway) coming in 7th is November 26, 2011. For those who know me, this is stunning to see the NC State game so low. I really enjoy playing State and I think them and Maryland have a lot in common. We both wear red. We both look to the past for our glories, we are both about the same size, and both accepted me into their College of Agriculture!  Anyway, I was back and forth with this one and UVA. But the truth of the matter is, we play in Raleigh this year, and I would much rather beat UVA in College Park, even if it isn’t an Atlantic Division win. A tough call, but that is where we are.

Tune in tomorrow where we have the final 6. God when will September get here??

This entry was posted on Monday, July 11th, 2011 at 10:21 pm and is filed under Maryland Terps Football. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.