Maryland Terrapins
An unofficial football team composed of Maryland Agricultural College students played games against local high schools in 1890 and 1891. The following year, the school lent its support, which marked of the Maryland football program in 1892. The football team has continued to the present day with the exception of a brief hiatus in 1895. In 1894, former Maryland coach and player William W. Skinner spearheaded the formation of the Maryland Intercollegiate Football Association, which served to award the state football championship. Maryland hired D. John Markey as its first paid football coach in 1902. H. C. "Curley" Byrd, who eventually served as the university president from 1936 to 1953, began his playing career on the team in 1905. In 1911, Byrd was appointed as the head football coach, and he served in that position through 1934. During his tenure, Byrd was instrumental in growing support of the program, and in 1915 successfully requisitioned funding for the school's first stadium. In his position as university president, he was also responsible for building the school's current football facility, Maryland Stadium.
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.