The Buckeyes will stay in the Big Ten East with a match-up against the Maryland Terrapins the week before the biggest game of the season, the game against the hated rivals to the north. Historically, and it is a very short history, the Buckeyes have had their way with the Terps en route to a 4-0 record and hanging 62 points in the last two contests against D.J. Durkin's squad.

For the sake of fairness, Maryland was down a couple of quarterbacks before facing the Buckeyes last season and Max Bortenschlager tried his best but only had a 3/12 passing game for 16 yards as the Terps were held to a grand total of 66 yards of offense. If not for a 100-yard kickoff return by Ty Johnson and a late touchdown run by Javon Leake, the Terps were well on their way to putting up a lot of zeroes on the scoreboard. Ohio State called off the dogs in this one and still won 62-14.

The 2017 season got off to a great start for the Terps with a 51-41 win over Texas, in Austin (Texas). Nobody was quite sure what to make of Maryland (or Texas for that matter) after that game. Tyrell Pigrome had a big start to the game before getting knocked out with an injury and his backup, Kasim Hill, a freshman, led two critical fourth-quarter scoring drives that sealed the deal.

The issue is, that Pigrome would be lost for the season after that point and Hill would only make it through three games, starting two of them. Bortenschlager and Ryan Brand would have to carry the mail the rest of the way and neither had great success as the Terps became a very one-dimensional team the rest of the way.

Maryland would fall in week three to Central Florida, granted nobody knew just how good UCF would end up being at this point of the year. The Terps would enter Big Ten play with a lot of questions and would leave the season with a lot of questions and what-ifs.

The Terps would pull off a late miracle in their league opener against Minnesota. The team would run for 262 yards on the day and no run would be bigger than Johnson's 34-yard touchdown with 1:10 left in the game to give the Terps the lead for good and a critical road win in conference play.

Ohio State would be next on the schedule and would set off a chain of losses for the Terps, three straight and seven of eight to end the season.

Maryland would find one league win, against Indiana in a 42-39 shootout in College Park (Md.) but every other game would be decided by at least two scores and the year would end at home with a thorough thrashing at the hands of Penn State in a 66-3 rout.

There will be a lot of key pieces that need to be replaced in 2018 for the Terps. None may be bigger than the loss of DJ Moore. Moore entered the NFL Draft and was a first team All-Big Ten performer at receiver and led the league in receptions (80) as well as receiving yards (1,033). Moore had nine touchdowns (eight receiving, one rushing) and only Bortenschlager (12) was responsible for more touchdowns than Moore.

Cornerback JC Jackson joined Moore in the early declaration process and will take three interceptions, seven PBUs and 10 passes defended along with him to the league. He started all 12 games for the Terps, something that was a bit of an exception with so many players getting hurt for Maryland last season and missing time.

Opening game linebackers Jalen Brooks, Jermaine Carter and Shane Cockerille are all on their way out, leaving the Terps with a lot of questions at linebacker. Isaiah Davis stepped into one of those roles as the year went on and played well in starting nine games, but few teams have to replace an entire linebacker group en masse, but that is something that Durkin and the Terps will have to contend with this season.

Both Tyrrell Pigrome and Kasim Hill will be on the roster and while neither may see a lot of action in the spring, both should be able to go for the season and that gives the Terps some options at the quarterback position. Don't expect Bortenschlager to just hand the position over but both Pigrome and Hill were ahead on the depth chart last year for a reason and it is reasonable to expect one of them to ascend back to the starting quarterback position when the Terps open with Texas in College Park.

Defensive end Jesse Aniebonam played in one game for the Terps last season at the Buck position, but he is a player you have to focus on as an opposing offense because he is that good. He will be joined by former Auburn end Byron Cowart who is joining the Terps via the JUCO route and Maryland should have some solid stars coming off of the edge.

Running back Ty Johnson will be back and last season he rushed for 875 yards on 137 carries for a 6.4 YPC average and had five touchdowns. He will be flanked once again by Lorenzo Harrison who had 622 yards on an identical 137 carries and three scores.

The Terps will rely upon offensive tackle Damian Prince, a player the Buckeyes wanted desperately during the recruiting process. He will anchor a line that will be intact from last season, but Prince will be one of several offensive linemen who will miss some/all of spring practice. One the one hand, that will give younger guys a chance to see meaningful reps but on the other, it will not allow the line to have these 15 practices to work as a unit.

Who will be the starting quarterback in 2018?

A pretty fair question. Four different quarterbacks started games in 2017 due to injuries and such. Pigrome was the starter in week one and was sharp in his limited action, as was Hill who was 18-21 for 2 scores and zero interceptions in his body of work. Unfortunately, neither made it to league play and the sample size is pretty small with a combined 33 pass attempts between the two quarterbacks. The numbers though were solid, with four quarters coming against Texas rather than week two opponent, Towson, a team that put up little resistance for the Terps.

Maryland will be bringing back most of its running game but will be losing most of its offensive production in the receivers room and that also could create an issue for the passing game as the Terps look to identify the next round of receivers who hope to follow in the steps of DJ Moore et al.

Who is going to step up at linebacker?

We already mentioned Isaiah Davis stepping up and starting nine games last season for the Terps. Maryland does welcome a graduate transfer from Illinois at linebacker with Tre Watson and he might need to step in and grab a position. He was the third-leading tackler for the Illini last season but that Illinois defense in 2017 was anything but good as a whole. People will have to keep an eye on Brett Shepherd and Bryce Brand as potential candidates to jump into the starting lineup as well for the Terps. Maryland did sign three linebackers in the class of 2018, but it would be a big ask to expect any of them to be able to contribute at linebacker this season barring a quarterback-like crisis that would call them into action just based on a numbers game.

What impact with Matta Canada have on the offense?

The travels of Matt Canada continue with the latest stop at Maryland. The 46-year-old offensive coordinator was the LSU O-Coordinator for one season in 2017 and made a stop at Pittsburgh in 2016. In fact, four of the last five jobs for Canada have lasted for one year, only with an extended run at NC State that lasted from 2013-15.

Canada has been considered one of the bright young minds in offensive coaching, but it does beg to ask why is he moving around so much if things are so good? It has been several years since he tasted success at Northern Illinois in helping his squad win the MAC championship and then following it up at Wisconsin in 2012 with an appearance in the 2012 Big Ten title game (the Badgers hung 70 on Nebraska that night).

In fairness, Canada will have a much better quarterback situation than he had in Baton Rouge as the Tigers had few options at the position and there will be plenty of options in College Park. But it does take time to implement an offensive scheme and the Terps will be trying to replace some key players in key positions and the best plan in the world means little if you don't have the players who can execute that plan.

This just seems to be a much better fit for Canada than some of his previous stops, but he also is going to be in a brutal division with the Big Ten East and there won't be much give from most of the teams in terms of offering up a learning curve. 2018 could be a bumpy ride but if Maryland and Canada have patience, it could end up paying off in the long run.

Everyone got really excited about Maryland last year with the win at Texas. Not just in beating the Longhorns but hanging 51 points up at DKR in a game that many felt would lead to a nice warm-up for the Tom Herman-era in Austin.

Then the bottom dropped out and we know what happened in 2017.

On to 2018.

Texas makes a return visit to Maryland and this could get ugly if the Terps don't come out with their 'A game' in week one. Week two should offer a layup, despite being on the road, Bowling Green was not very good last year and the Terps should get healthy in that game. Week three faces Temple, a team that went 7-6 last year and this might be a good barometer of what to expect for the rest of the way for Maryland.

The Terps better make their run early in the Big Ten season because things get tougher once the calendar turns to November. Michigan appears to be the toughest of the first three games in league play with Minnesota coming to town as well as Rutgers, sandwiched around a trip to Ann Arbor (Mich.). The middle part of the league schedule has its own challenges with a trip top Iowa City along with home games against Illinois and Michigan State.

Maryland will go on the road to Indiana before having to host Ohio State and travel to Penn State in consecutive weeks to close out the year.

If this team overachieves, an eight-win season could happen. If the injury bug strikes again, Durkin could feel his seat warm up with a four-win season, or worse, in sight. This team feels like a 6-6 team however, they really should go 2-1 in league play and that means that they have to reel off four league wins. Rutgers and Illinois both should be in-hand, meaning they need two more. Minnesota in week four of the season seems like a potential win and then it will just take one more. We saw what Pigrome and/or Hill meant to this offense, this team is going to be good enough to win a game that it likely should not if they get the type of production on the defensive front that people are hoping for around the Terrapins program. We don't expect Ohio State to be that team however as the Buckeyes continue their dominance over the Terps.

Way too early score prediction: Ohio State 42 Maryland 17