What’s Wrong With Maryland Football?

NCAAF College Football News, Photos, Stats, Scores, Schedule & Videos...

This is our weekly Q&A with our upcoming college football opponents. I asked our Maryland SB Nation site, Testudo Times, just two questions. Their head dude in charge, Nolan Rogalski, answered..

Questions:

• What’s wrong with Maryland?
• Why hasn’t Mike Locksley been fired?

Answer:

Maryland football is in a real predicament right now. Their coach, who was signed to a five-year extension to make roughly $6 million per year after winning three consecutive bowl games, has produced back-to-back seasons finishing 4-8, including just two total wins in the Big Ten, and has a team that was on an upward trajectory going in the wrong direction.

However, what outsiders don’t fully understand is just how deeply this man is entrenched in Maryland football.

Mike Locksley was one of the original two holdovers from Maryland’s staff right at the turn of the century, one of two young “chosen ones“ (alongside current Virginia Tech head coach James Franklin) that was kept around to learn from the great Ralph Friedgen Locksley eventually went on his way after a few years working with Friedgen. Locksley was known even then for his ability to connect with recruits, a real player’s coach.

His presence around the DMV was undeniable, and in a large way, it was part of why he returned to the University of Maryland before the 2012 season as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach for then head coach Randy Edsall. He had flopped in his first head coaching job (2-26 at New Mexico from 2009-2011) and needed to recuperate back home.

That team trodded along, and once Edsall got the boot, it was Locksley’s responsibility to come into the team and steady the ship as interim coach for the remainder of the 2015 season. Now mind you, the Terps did not do very well that year. They won just one of Locksley’s six games in charge, a 46-41 victory over Rutgers on the last day of the season. The athletic department ended up looking elsewhere for a permanent head coach, getting DJ Durkin in the door.

Durkin’s time with the team came to an abrupt end following the death of offensive lineman Jordan McNair. At that point, the Maryland job was in perhaps its least desirable position ever. The team had recently transitioned to the Big Ten, they clearly were not at the level to compete with the upper echelon of the conference, the program had some financial struggles, after McNair’s heat stroke people wanted to stay away from the program… overall, just a tough time for the program. 

But Locksley and Maryland had a story that was destined to intertwine once again. There was a dearth of interest in the job, and after Locksley had won the Broyles Award as the top assistant in college football under Nick Saban as Alabama stormed to a national championship, it seemed like the perfect fit. The right man for the right time. Someone who could come in and change the culture, get the program back on its feet, and give it truly everything he had. 

The part that will get lost to time is that, for a while, he did. Locksley ended up turning this program around; those three straight bowl game victories from 2021 to 2023, championed by the Big Ten‘s all-time passing leader in Taulia Tagovailoa, were a real high water mark for a program that had not made consecutive bowl games — let alone won them — since Friedgen.

But then, the 2024 season rolled around. Without Tagovailoa, and several other players who had graduated, the team took a massive step back. Pressure began to build on Locksley, but a last-gasp comeback win over USC at home – a game so dramatic that students stormed the field after it was over (I was one of them.) – was something that earned him an extra year. He showed he could produce magic, make the team more than the sum of its parts.

And then, in comes Malik Washington. The savior of the program. The leader of a movement of some of the best talent in the DMV staying in the DMV, sticking around at home to play for a Maryland team that people thought could potentially rise above the sum of its parts. Of course, Maryland went 4-8 for the second straight year, losing eight straight to end the season, giving many around the program reasonable doubts as to whether Locksley would be fired. 

In the end, I believe a few things saved him: firstly, it was Athletic Director Jim Smith’s first year in the job, and that’s a tough call to make just a few months into your tenure. Additionally, Washington was not going to stick around for his sophomore year without Locksley; a lot of players would’ve left if the coach had been fired. For all of his shortcomings on the field, off it, he garners immense support from his locker room. There was also the small subject of five-star recruit Zion Elee, the highest-rated recruit to ever grace Maryland football, who surely would not have stayed committed if the coach had gone.

All that comes before considering the eight-figure sum Maryland would’ve had to pay to fire Locksley, who was sitting on that contract extension. Maryland doesn’t have that sort of money sitting around, this is still a poor athletic department by Big Ten standards.

The hopeful thought around the program, and what was echoed to us in the media, was that this team had matured and grown and learned from such a terrible end to the season. The belief was that with more talent and that added experience, things weren’t going to go that way again.

And then, the results started pouring in over the last few weeks.

The loss to Virginia Tech was abhorrent. The team did not look prepared. The garbage time touchdowns made the scoreline look a lot kinder than the game was. From a long list of contenders, it was singularly the worst performance by a Maryland team I had covered… until the 54-3 loss to UCLA.

The buyout is now just shy of $10 million and dropping every month, a much more appealing number. Still, though, that amount of money will have to come from somewhere. Maryland doesn’t just have that sitting around, and boosters haven’t been moved just yet. 

Locksley is a leader of men and father figure whose weakness is the on-the-field coaching.Coordinators have come and gone, but playcalling issues have persisted. Right now, the team is less than the sum of its parts.

The offensive line has been unable to run-block for three years. Missed tackles in the back seven are a constant. Washington has the physical traits to be a star, but the technical progression has stalled — and he has little help. Certain issues have been constants under Locksley, and these things that prevent the team from being great likely won’t change until the man in charge does.

TL;DR A legitimate body of work got Locksley to a point; his albatross of a contract and the desire to not lose all of the talent to the portal has kept him here since then. 

More at NCAAF College Football News, Photos, Stats, Scores, Schedule & Videos