Looking at the schedule, the Terps have their work cut out for them in 2019 if they want to qualify for a bowl game under first-year head coach Michael Locksley. The preseason consensus is that Maryland will play one of 20 toughest schedules in the country, including road games versus Big Ten East division foes Michigan State and Ohio State as well as an early season meeting with preseason ranked Syracuse.

The Terps will have two byes, the first coming at a very opportune time following Maryland's third and final non-conference game versus Temple and just ahead of the Big Ten opener versus Penn State, which will take place on a Friday night, under the lights in College Park.

Maryland will then play seven straight weeks before being off Saturday, November 16. They will then close out the season with a home game versus Nebraska of the West division followed by the final game of the year to be played in East Lansing.

This is the first in a 12-part series as TSR counts down the "easiest" to "hardest" games of 2019.

Despite their close proximity geographically, Maryland and Howard have only met on the gridiron once before and that was in College Park in 2016 when the Terps handed the Bison a humbling 52-13 loss.

Maryland will open its season once again against the historically black university located in Washington, D.C., and hope for another dominating performance to start the year.

Much like how the last time these two teams met it was former Maryland head coach D.J. Durkin’s first game at the helm for the Terps, this will be the first game of the Mike Locksley era in College Park, so the Terps will look to not only win, but do so in impressive fashion.

Howard is coming off of a lackluster season in 2018 in which they went 4-6 and finished fourth in the MEAC. However, the Bison lost four games by less than a touchdown and are a program that showed it has some serious fight in it with its impressive 2017 season in which they won seven games, including the program’s first ever FBS win (at UNLV). They too will be ushering in a new head coach—Ron Prince—who will be replacing former Terps defensive line coach Mike London.

Prince has been an NFL assistant and previously was the head coach at Kansas State. He returns to coach at the FCS level after a 19-year hiatus. His last FCS experience was at Cornell in 2000.

Howard returns most of its offense from last season and this has a chance to be a potent bunch. Cam Newton’s younger brother Caylin Newton takes the snaps for the Bison and his favorite target is Jequez Ezzard, who averaged 26.6 yards per catch last season. The Bison need to do some patchwork on the offensive line, but if they can find serviceable pieces in that area, they could have an even better offense than last season when they finished 15th in the FCS in total offense.

The defense for Howard is another story. The Bison were one of the worst FCS teams last year in yards allowed and turnover margin. In short, Howard’s defense couldn’t slow opposing teams down and wasn’t taking the ball away with any consistency. However, this side of the ball does have some talent such as safety Tye Freeland, who held several ACC scholarship offers coming out of high school, and linebacker Marcellos Allison.

Bottom line: This game should be won handedly by the Terps. Locksley & Co. may not show a ton of their playbook in this one but it will be the first glimpse of what Maryland looks like under this new regime. Expect several underclassmen to receive some playing time in the second half of the game if everything goes according to plan for the Terps.

Series: 1-0, Maryland

Last Maryland win: 2016, 52-13 at Maryland

Last Howard win: None