2017 Maryland Terrapins football team
The 2017 Maryland Terrapins football team represented the University of Maryland during the 2017 NCAA Division I FBS football season. The Terrapins played their home games at Maryland Stadium in College Park, Maryland and competed in the East Division of the Big Ten Conference. Maryland celebrated their 125th anniversary of the program that was established in 1892, when the University of Maryland, College Park was still known as the Maryland Agricultural College. They were led by second-year head coach D.J. Durkin. They finished the season 4–8, 2–7 in Big Ten play to finish in a tie for sixth place in the East Division.
Maryland Intercollegiate Football Association
The impetus for the formation of the MIFA was a controversial game on November 1, 1893 between the (now known as the University of Maryland) and Saint John's College of Annapolis. Maryland won the game, 6–0, but St. John's players later wrote in the "Baltimore American" that "a decision by which the M.A.C. were allowed to score the only touchdown made by the quarterback after a run of 90 yards, with no one in pursuit, appeared a very doubtful one." Maryland finished the season by beating Western Maryland and the Orient Athletic Club. With a 6–0 record, the "Aggies" were named the state champions, but the title was contested by St. John's. The following season, Maryland's former quarterback and coach William W. Skinner led the effort to create an intercollegiate football league to improve the process in which the state championship was awarded. The conference began competition on October 13, 1894 with games between St. John's College and Washington College in Annapolis, and Maryland Agricultural College and Western Maryland in Westminster.