The Maryland–Rutgers football rivalry is an American college football rivalry between the Maryland Terrapins and the Rutgers Scarlet Knights of the Big Ten Conference.

The programs first met in 1920 and played nine nonconference games through 2009. Both joined the Big Ten in 2014, after which the game became an annual fixture; the conference designated it a protected annual matchup in 2024.

Through 2025, Maryland leads the series 12–9. The matchup has no trophy, and commentators have divided over whether it constitutes a rivalry, with national writers treating it as a product of conference realignment and regional coverage describing an emerging one.

History Early meetings (1920-2009) The schools played nine nonconference games between 1920 and 2009, with Maryland holding a 5–4 record.

Big Ten era (2014-present) When Maryland and Rutgers joined the Big Ten Conference together in 2014, they were placed in the conference's newly formed East Division.

In seven of their first ten Big Ten seasons (2014–23), Maryland and Rutgers were scheduled to play each other in the final week of the regular season.

In 2024, the expanded 18-team Big Ten eliminated divisions but designated Maryland–Rutgers as one of 12 protected annual matchups in the new Flex Protect XVIII model, ensuring the teams would continue to meet annually through at least 2028.

In September 2025, the Big Ten included Maryland at Rutgers among 17 games in the inaugural Big Ten Rivalry Series presented by Venmo.

Since joining the Big Ten on the same day, Maryland and Rutgers have remained its lowest-revenue athletic departments. Since 2014, the two have compiled the conference's worst records in league football play—Maryland 29–73 and Rutgers 22–84 through the 2025 season—and reported its two lowest football ticket-sales totals among Big Ten public schools. In fiscal year 2025, Maryland reported $124 million in athletic revenue, the lowest in the conference, ahead of only Rutgers' $146.64 million; Rutgers' athletic department had absorbed $518.9 million in losses, subsidies and student fees over its first 11 Big Ten seasons. Both schools hired new athletic directors in July 2025.

2017 Yankee Stadium Game In 2017, Rutgers attempted to move their home game against Maryland to Yankee Stadium as part of a football and wrestling doubleheader. Marketed as "The Battle in the Bronx," the game was scheduled for November 4, but had to be moved back to their home field at High Point Solutions Stadium (now SHI Stadium) with just two weeks' notice due to the possibility of the New York Yankees hosting World Series games

The Yankees were eliminated from the 2017 American League Championship Series by the Houston Astros one day after Rutgers announced the venue change, meaning the stadium would have been available after all. Rutgers had paid a $750,000 stadium rental fee, which was refunded when the game was relocated. Fan response to the original Yankee Stadium plan had been lukewarm, with many expressing concerns about parking, tailgating, and sight lines, along with the fact that the tickets were a required component of 2017 season ticket packages

Rivalry trophy discussions In July 2016, Rutgers Athletic Director Patrick E. Hobbs and then-head coach Chris Ash publicly acknowledged having "initial conversations with Maryland" about creating a rivalry trophy. Maryland's response was notably tepid, with head coach DJ Durkin offering what media described as "a bit of a non-answer" at that year's Big Ten Media Days, saying such matters were "more for fans, people around the game."

The trophy discussions generated various suggestions from fans and media, including "The Market Capturer Cup" (referencing both schools' media market-driven addition to the Big Ten), "The Old Oaken Metro Area" (noting neither school's location in their claimed New York and Washington media markets), and "The Iron Traincar Full of Bros Arguing About Moe's and Chipotle" In a November 2014 NJ.com reader poll about potential trophy concepts, the most popular response was "Wait. When did Maryland-Rutgers become a rivalry?" receiving 24.74% of votes, while the top-earning concrete trophy was "Delaware!"

Delaware as a trophy Initial fan trophy discussions centered on Delaware as a rivalry prize, given the state's position as a narrow buffer between Maryland and New Jersey, and on both states' colonial-era claims to its territory.

Perception

Commentators have divided over whether the annual meeting constitutes a rivalry. Asked in 2022 whether he considered Maryland a rival, Rutgers head coach Greg Schiano said the programs had "good games" but that "I don't think we have enough history yet for it to become a rivalry," adding that such relationships develop "organically" through recruiting battles and repeated competitive meetings.

Critics cite the matchup as an example of how conference realignment forced manufactured rivalries. On the Banks argued that both programs were "fledglings in the Big Ten, sitting at the kids table in terms of Big Ten rivalries, while the elders, Ohio State, Penn State, Michigan, Michigan State, etc., have had more time to develop true rivalries amongst themselves." The Athletic noted that newer protected matchups have struggled to generate similar gravitas but are driven by geographic convenience. Surveying every Power Four program's chief rival in 2026, The Athletic's Joe Rexrode placed Maryland and Rutgers together by default—"What else to do with these two?"—and described them as "joined in mutual indifference," omitting the pairing from the outlet's ranking of the sport's 100 greatest rivalries.

Regional coverage has been warmer. Previewing the 2025 meeting, NJ.com's staff wrote that "there is no official moment where a matchup becomes a rivalry, but it feels like Rutgers and Maryland are approaching that territory," arguing that "rivalries are not created when a conference assigns them via a sponsorship deal" but by games with stakes for both sides. By 2026 beat coverage referred to the game as a rivalry without qualification.

The Know Rivalry Project, an academic survey conducted by Joe Cobbs of Northern Kentucky University and David Tyler of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, asks fans to allocate 100 "rivalry points" among their team's opponents. Its data record the relationship as asymmetric: Rutgers fans assigned Maryland 16.2 points, the second-highest total among Rutgers' listed opponents, while Maryland fans assigned Rutgers 6.7, the lowest among Maryland's. On the project's hostility measures, adapted in part from Pettigrew and Meertens's prejudice scales, Rutgers fans rated their prejudice toward Maryland fans at 3.8 and their willingness to discriminate against them in personal and professional relationships at 2.3, each on a seven-point scale; corresponding figures for Maryland fans are not reported.

Statistics Through 2025, Maryland leads the series 12–9, with a 7–5 record in conference play.

Game results

See also List of NCAA college football rivalry games

Notes

References