The crowd in the student section at Byrd Stadium thinned throughout the third quarter of the Terrapins football team’s 52-24 loss to No. 20 Ohio State on Saturday, and by the start of the final period, Buckeyes fans outnumbered the Terps faithful.

You couldn’t tell by looking around the stadium, though. Most of both teams’ fans were clad in red, so you had to listen to know which way the remaining spectators were leaning.

A soft chant of “O-H-I-O” spread through the afternoon air early in the fourth quarter. Then as the massacre wore on and the clock dwindled down, the shouts grew more substantial and clear.

“O-H-I-O.”

And when the chant filled the stadium, one thing became stunningly clear: The Terps are not one of the nation’s better programs, and they aren’t close to where coach Randy Edsall wants them to be.

[ READ MORE: Ohio State dominates Maryland in first Big Ten game at Byrd Stadium ]

Teams constantly ranked in the top 25 don’t lose by 28 points at home. Quarterbacks who help their squads compete for conference championships don’t get replaced at halftime after making terrible decisions the way C.J. Brown did Saturday. And programs that draw national attention don’t hear opposing fans chanting throughout fourth quarters of home games.

“You don’t want an opposing teams fan base to come in chanting their name,” defensive end Andre Monroe said. “You hear it, you don’t like it, but you just got to keep going.”

But the Terps keep going without improving. Ohio State was too athletic and too prepared for the Terps to make a dent in their deficit.

The Buckeyes threw for 264 yards and rushed for 269. They picked off Brown once and snagged three interceptions off backup Caleb Rowe. And they limited the Terps to 66 yards on the ground.

But the stats only hint at the disappointment Saturday provided.

The Terps were physically and schematically outmatched all game, so much so that in the space of one afternoon, their hopes of competing for a Big Ten title went from realistic to laughable.

At this point, the Terps are a team destined to win five to eight games a year, finish in the middle of the pack in the Big Ten and go to a meaningless bowl game with a humorous sponsor.

Ohio State is the kind of team that wins 10 games most seasons and often competes for championships. Saturday, the Terps couldn’t keep up with the perennial powerhouse. In the fourth quarter alone, the Buckeyes had a backup quarterback hurdle a safety and defensive backs pick off two of Rowe’s passes in a span of three offensive plays.

It was brutal. It was ugly. And it was telling. The Terps haven’t beaten a ranked team since 2010, and Edsall is 1-25 in his career against opponents in the Top 25. The Terps just aren’t a top-25 program ­— or anywhere close to it.

So how do the Terps become a team like Ohio State, one that’s consistently successful and nationally relevant? Edsall has an idea.

“What we’ve got to do is continue to build the program; we’ve got to get facilities. We got to continue to recruit at the level that we’ve been recruiting at,” Edsall said.

But the Terps haven’t had a recruiting class ESPN has ranked in the nation’s top 25 since Edsall’s been in College Park. If you don’t have the best players coming into your program, you won’t crack the Top 25.

Plus, this Terps team is a veteran group, not one full of underclassmen with several years to improve together.

Maybe one day Edsall will have a team that can carve an imprint on the national stage.

But for now, he doesn’t.