COLLEGE PARK, M.d. (DC News Now) – The Maryland Terrapins begin conference play on the road against Michigan State as they look to stay undefeated this Saturday.

Senior quarterback Taulia Tagovailoa says that beginning conference action in the win column would set the tone for the rest of the season.

“We have a lot of confidence from these past two games and we know we can do.”

Junior running back Colby McDonald has seen more playing time so far this season, and he hopes to contribute to a team win on Saturday.

“We did really good in these non-conference games, but we know the conference games is the start of a journey. Like Coach Locke said, we talk about winning championships up here. Game one is the start.”

The Terps are 3-0, however, the last two games were come-from-behind victories for the Terps, and head coach Mike Locksley says they’ve made some changes to their approach at practice to ensure the Terps start and stay hot for all four quarters.

“Going back to getting the ‘good old good periods’ back in our practice hopefully will give us the speed that we need to be able to start fast and not have that adjustment period, I hope.”

Michigan State recently announced that they will be firing their head coach, Mel Tucker, as a result of sexual harassment allegations. Tucker, released a statement Tuesday morning denying allegations of wrongdoing and felt the University’s decision to fire him was unwarranted.

Meanwhile, Locksley says that his players aren’t paying much attention to what is going on in the Spartans’ locker room. However, the Terps do expect Michigan State to be just as dominant on defense as they have in years past.

“They’re the same Michigan State team,” says Locksley. “I mean, they’re one of the top third-down defenses in the country. I expect them, especially with, you know, what they’ve been through, to kind of take that us against the world mentality that we’ve seen around here and that’s why for us, we better be prepared.”

Maryland and Michigan State will kick off at around 3:30 PM ET on Saturday from Spartan Stadium.