Maryland Offers Free Tuition Raffle, Yet Stadium Stays Sparse in 20-17 Loss to Illinois

The University of Maryland offered fans who stayed through the fourth quarter of Saturday's home game against Illinois a drawing for free tuition for next spring semester, worth $5,507.50, but SECU Stadium was far from full. Illinois beat the Terrapins 20-17 even though Maryland led 14-10 in the third quarter. The loss dropped Maryland to 2-6 on the season, and the team sits 17th in the Big Ten standings. Students who remained at the end could enter the raffle by scanning a QR code. A mechanical engineering major, Bryce Hartle, won the drawing, according to DC News Now's Alex Flum, and he was emotional when it was announced. The game was the first under an interim coach, after Mike Locksley and the school reached a mutual decision on Oct. 21 for him to step down as head coach. The game fell on Halloween.

Fox News, the right-leaning outlet covering it, leads with the failed promotion and builds the piece around humor. It says the crowd at kickoff showed Maryland may need to rethink its approach, jokes that students might have dressed as metal bleachers because of the Halloween date, and ties the poor turnout to the recent coaching change. It includes photos of Maryland and Illinois players and links to other college football stories. It gives no raffle winner and no final score in the portion available. Newsweek, the alternative outlet, takes a similar mocking tone, calling the turnout embarrassing, but adds concrete details: the winner's name and major, the score, the record, the standings and the Locksley departure date. Left-leaning outlets had not reported this story at the time of writing, while the right-leaning and alternative outlets had. Those covering it focus on the empty seats despite the incentive rather than on the game itself.