Maryland vs. Ohio State point spread: Picking Terrapins vs. Buckeyes

In eight matchups, Ohio State has never lost to Maryland. And though the Terrapins enter a Week 6 matchup in the Horseshoe undefeated, On3’s Andy Staples and current SiriusXM analyst and former lineman Geoff Schwartz don’t see the streak dying this year.

The more pertinent question then becomes: Can Ohio State cover a 19.5 point spread against visiting Maryland? It’ll be close, but both Schwartz and Staples think it’s certainly possible the Buckeyes and points win out.

“I’m going to take Ohio State, though, to cover. And it’s one of those, this was — last week I took USC to cover and was sure, once they got out to that big lead, I was like, ‘Alright, they are rolling here. This is going to be great.’ And then Colorado starts to come back. Because the part you don’t really account for is when a team gets comfortable with a big lead, can they keep the hammer down? I think Ohio State probably can. It’s not USC’s defense, which we will talk about a little bit later,” Staples said.

Schwartz wasn’t gung ho about the Buckeyes covering, but he expects the game to have gotten out of hand by the end of the 60 minutes.

Basically, Maryland might be good enough to score a bit in the first half and keep the game competitive, but Ohio State’s edge in all three phases will win out as the game goes on. Especially with Ohio State coming off an idle week.

“But, they had a week to sort of get right, right? To kind of refocus, to use that bye week to, I would imagine, put some new things in, get guys healthy and it just feels like over 60 minutes, Ohio State is better nearly everywhere, Andy. And I’m not sure I’d lay the, was it 19.5 you said? But I can certainly see this game being the like 48-28 type of range by the time it’s over, which I know is 20 points, so you take it, Ohio State would barely cover there. But it does feel like as the game gets longer, the talent level of Ohio State takes over,” Schwartz said.

To that end, Staples concurred. A rested and focused Ohio State team, playing at home, is not likely to struggle to run up the points and make plays on defense against a team they ultimately overmatch.

“This is a, people keep bringing up that 2018 game. That was at Maryland. There was a lot going on with Ohio State. That was the week before the Michigan game. All those things matter, too. This is not that situation. Now this is the week before the Penn State game — actually no, it’s not. It’s two weeks before the Penn State game. So it’s not — you don’t even have the lookahead factor there for Ohio State. So it is really, I just think you’re right: Coming off a bye week, the talent level. It may be close at first. It may be a close first half,” Staples said.

“That’s fair to say,” Schwartz said.

But a close first half likely won’t be enough for a Maryland team on the road against one of the very best teams in the country.