Maryland football has hit rock bottom. After five straight losses, a fired head coach, and 12 consecutive Big Ten defeats, the Terrapins are offering free tuition to keep students in the stadium. One student can win a semester’s tuition just for staying until the fourth quarter against Illinois. Apparently, Maryland can’t buy a win, so it’s trying to buy an audience.
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The Terrapins are 2-5 and 0-4 in the Big Ten, with wins over Hampton and UConn and nothing since then. Their last conference win was on September 20, 2025, at Wisconsin. They lost 54-3 at home to UCLA, then gave up a 23-13 halftime lead to Rutgers and fell 37-30 on October 17. Four days later, Mike Locksley was out with a 39-54 record.
“Maryland football has lost five straight games, fired its head coach and hasn’t won a Big Ten game in 402 days,” Ira Gorawara reported in an X post. “It’s now offering students a chance to win a full semester of free tuition, if they stick around until the fourth quarter. Not an incentive you see very often.”
The program expects students to scan a QR code on the video board at kickoff and stay until the fourth quarter. Rachel Palmer, the school’s assistant athletic director for fan development and marketing, told WBAL that five finalists will be brought onto the field, and only one will get the prize in the end.
The school covers in-state tuition, listed at $5,507.50 for the semester in the email The Athletic obtained. WBAL reported that university officials put the value at up to roughly $8,000 and will honor it regardless of residency. The email did not say whether the $910 in mandatory fees is covered.
The numbers explain the push. Maryland averages 42,264 fans across four home games, 15th among the Big Ten’s 18 teams. The Rutgers crowd of 39,326 was the smallest of the year and nearly 7,000 under SECU Stadium’s 46,185 capacity. Those are announced figures, but Maryland hasn’t said how many students leave early.
“To our fans: We will get a really good coach,” Smith said at a press conference inside SECU Stadium, according to George Gerbo of The Washington Times. “We are committed to compete at the absolute highest level, and we’re going to find the resources to be able to do that.”
Smith said there is no deadline for the hire and that interim coach Aazaar Abdul-Rahim will be a candidate. The tuition drawing isn’t the only push. The first 3,000 students get a Halloween T-shirt, the first 7,500 fans get an Oktoberfest hat, and tickets are buy one, get two free.
Maryland has done this before. In 2018, an anonymous donor funded scholarships, and the school paid out $28,000 to students who stayed through the fourth quarter, as The Baltimore Banner reported.
However, free classes won’t fix a defense or a conference slide. They might fill the student section for 60 minutes, but the rest falls on the field, with responsibility now falling on Abdul-Rahim.
Abdul-Rahim gets his first shot against Illinois
Abdul-Rahim, a D.C. native, was co-defensive coordinator and associate head coach for defense before Smith gave him the job. He coached at Maryland from 2016 to 2018 and returned in 2024.
“Really excited to really move on to the next steps, the next season, which we’re calling this,” Abdul-Rahim said, according to George Gerbo of The Washington Times. “This is a five-game season for us, and as far as I’m concerned, we’re 0-0 right now, and the kids are excited to show you guys a different [and] better brand of football.”
Whatever the raffle does for the crowd, Maryland still has to go win a game. Illinois visits College Park with the Terrapins chasing their first Big Ten win in more than a year.