The University of Maryland’s football program is at rock bottom once again, sitting at 2-5 and having just fired head coach Mike Locksley.
Attendance is also near the bottom, with their average of 42,264 fans through four home games sitting 15th out of 18 teams in the Big Ten.
With the Terrapins in dire straits, the university’s athletic department is deciding to lure students in with the promise of giving away one semester’s worth of tuition.
To win, Maryland students who claim their tickets for Saturday’s game against Illinois will need to scan a QR code on the video board to be entered into a raffle.
After staying through all four quarters of the game, five finalists will be brought down to the field.
Finally, one lucky student will be chosen to win the equivalent of one semester of in-state undergraduate tuition – roughly $8,000 – for the spring semester.
Maryland is offering free tuition to one lucky student if they stay for a whole football game
The Terrapins have not won a game since September and sit at 2-5 on the season
The school recently fired head coach Mike Locksley for their poor performance
According to the school, this giveaway promotion was developed long before the school’s precipitous slide.
‘It is kind of a problem, I think, across the country, honestly, with college football,’ Palmer added. ‘It’s a pretty long game and they have a lot of other things they can be doing.
‘So we just want to make sure coming to SECU Stadium [and] supporting our football team for all four quarters is higher on their priority list, especially on Halloween.’
After winning their first two games of the season against Hampton and UConn, the Terrapins have not won a game since.
This includes losses in their entire Big Ten calendar. Maryland hasn’t won a conference game since mid-September of 2025, when they beat Wisconsin on the road.
