The Old Line State is renowned for many things, including its world-class seafood, seafronts, and sporting success in lacrosse and basketball.
One thing Maryland is not known for, however, is its college football, with two Football Bowl Subdivision programs (Maryland and Navy) experiencing varying levels of success on and off the field.
Both the Terrapins and Midshipmen have experienced run-ins with success in all of the major categories, such as winning percentage, attendance, and even recruiting.
They have failed to do so often enough to score highly in any of those categories, which, combined with no College Football Playoff appearances, dragged down the state’s ranking overall.
BetMaryland.com developed a ranking system of the best states to be a college football fan since the adoption of the College Football Playoff in 2014.
The first category measured attendance between 2014 and 2019 (the most recent year available), via NCAA.com, to determine a ranking for each of the 41 states with at least one FBS team, based on a 1-41 metric (1 being the lowest, 41 the highest).
We used that same scoring metric to measure recruiting, utilizing 247 Sports’ FBS rankings to assign points to each team.
We also ranked each state by winning percentage of its FBS teams since 2014 and by the number of FBS schools per state. We then gave bonus points to states based on College Football Playoff appearances and National Championships.
Here’s where the state ranked by those metrics, between 2014 and 2022.
There still are no Maryland online sportsbooks. But hope is on the way, as the state expects to finally have mobile sports wagering operators running by the end of the year.
Best States for College Football Fans
When online sports betting does go live in the state, BetMaryland is the place to be for Maryland sportsbook promos.
Maryland Ranks Among Bottom of the Nation for CFB Fans
The combined lack of on-field success in Annapolis and College Park, teemed with the relative lack of recruiting success, ultimately doomed Maryland’s statewide ranking.
In total, Maryland’s two FBS programs combined to secure 59 points for the state, giving it the 31st spot out of 41 states with at least one top-level football team, sandwiched between Illinois (63 points) and Minnesota (57 points).
The state scored 18 points in our recruiting metric, coming in behind Virginia (19 points) and ahead of Wisconsin (17 points). Maryland’s statewide winning percentage of .462 was enough to get them nine points, while the average attendance at both programs notched 13 points in total.
Things could be looking up in Maryland, however, with the Terrapins sitting at 6-2 and on the verge of cracking the Associated Press top 25 in year four of the Mike Locksley era.
Maryland betting apps have the Terrapins at +25000 to win the Big Ten.
The Midshipmen have fallen on hard times. Navy has a total of nine victories since the start of the 2020 season, after winning 11 games in 2019 alone.
