Maryland enters 2022 with no limits on what success looks like

Christmas in July festivals are popular in many parts of the country, marking the halfway point to the holidays. For Maryland coach Mike Locksley, though, that celebration came in August.

The Terrapins’ fourth-year leader described the month that way in anticipation of seeing “all the new toys that we’ve recruited and developed” and the return of practices to the College Park campus.

Now, with all of his roster unwrapped and training camp put away like decorations, Locksley hopes the 2022 season leads to another present — that is, playing in another holiday-season bowl game.

After winning the program’s first bowl game in more than a decade, expectations are high on Maryland’s campus. But what will define success this year, after last December’s Pinstripe Bowl triumph, especially in one of the toughest divisions in college football?

“I’ve seen our team really take some big steps and become the two important things that we’ve talked about since January, which has been connected and committed,” Locksley said. “And I think that’s really important for us as we go through what we expect to be a really tough season with the type of schedule we have to play.”

Internally, Maryland doesn’t measure itself against its opponents. Locksley preaches a ‘Terps vs. Terps’ ethos: Be the best we can be and improve against ourselves, and then turn those talents loose against the rest of the Big Ten.

“I know people say we want to close the gap between the top teams. We’ve got a tough league, we understand that,” Locksley said. “But it’s still gonna be more about what we do than it is what they do. And I feel good that we’re creating the type of culture and a discipline that will allow us to do those things that we want to get accomplished.”

They are more equipped to do that in 2022 than ever in recent memory, with a roster that Locksley said came through fall camp healthy, along with continuity and depth at key positions the Terrapins didn’t have last year.

Offense

It starts, of course, with quarterback Taulia Tagovailoa. After reaching single-season program marks in five different passing categories, including passing yards, completions, and touchdowns, the signal-caller returns for his redshirt-junior season poised for more.

“With [offensive coordinator Dan] Enos’ offense, I feel like a gunslinger quarterback,” Tagovailoa said, excitedly. “I feel like that’s that’s the place to be.”

With Tagovailoa in his second full season as Maryland’s starter, the goal for Enos is to refine and reinforce the things he does well.

“When he’s really, really sure about what he’s seeing and what he’s doing, he’s really good with his eyes and feet. And sometimes when he’s a little bit maybe indecisive, he’s not quite as good,” Enos said. “So again, the process of getting him to where he is very decisive on everything we’re doing, I think we’ll be able to eliminate a lot of the mistakes.”

Part of that is Tagovailoa finding balance in his in-game emotions — not letting the highs get too high and not taking the lows as hard. 

“I think that was something really hard for me. Growing up, too, something would happen, and I would get really excited or show my emotions about it,” Tagovailoa said of finding that middle ground.

“That’s something that I have to take into consideration, and it comes with the position.. The coaches understand, and they always tell me they’ll never take my aggression away from me, but I do need to stay in neutral and clear my head the next play. Every play has a new beginning, a new end. So, it’s a work in progress, and I think I’m with the right people to help me with that.”

That includes his coach and coordinator.

“For me,” Locksley said, “I think the biggest next step for ‘Lia — and he understands this —  is to continue to emotionally mature to where as a leader, he doesn’t ride the wave of emotions that go within the game where you have good and bad. We want to kind of keep him at neutral.”

“He’s very serious,” Enos said of Tagovailoa, “I actually have to lighten up the mood and joke around with him a little bit, but he’s very serious about it. He’s very determined, and he’s always looking for ways to get better.”

Those two will benefit from health and depth on the ends, making up arguably — along with Ohio State and USC — one of the best wide receiver rooms in the country. That room gets its heartbeat back in the return of perhaps the Terrapins’ second-deadliest weapon, Dontay Demus Jr. 

“He continues to be one of the tremendous leaders that we have in our program,” Locksley said of the senior wideout. “I know he’s kind of been the heartbeat of our team and the emotional leader. So having him back has been just great for our program and great for our offense.”

His injury on a punt return early in the second quarter of the season’s fifth game against Iowa deflated an energized, Friday night Maryland Stadium crowd. But as Demus was carted off the field, he pointed to the damaged ligaments in his knee and declared, “I’m coming back.” 

“I felt like I let my brothers down a little bit,” Demus said of that moment. “So I just had to let the boys know I had one more [season] left in me.”

Ten months removed from that night, the District native is back, and with authority — advancing through his offseason rehabilitation process ahead of schedule and ready for week one against Buffalo. 

“I do this stuff not only for myself,” Demus said. “I know it’s bigger than me. I know I’m not just out here only just trying to take care of myself. Everybody’s put in the work for me, so why not put it in for them?”

Demus’ words are emblemetic of a deepened bond among the 2022 Terrapins that extends down the depth chart. At receiver, it includes another return from injury in the form of Jeshaun Jones; Rakim Jarrett, who picked up the lion’s share of targets and improvement after Jones and Demus went down; and the addition of Florida transfer Jacob Copeland, who led the Gators in every receiving category in 2021.

“This receiver corps is built differently, to be honest. You can’t really focus on one guy,” Demus said. “It’s like Rak said [at Big Ten media days] … it’s a pick your poison type of thing. You can’t really key in on one guy, you have to play us truthfully as a whole offense.”

“He’s a playmaker,” Jarrett said of his teammate. “He’s one of our best playmakers we have. So I think him, plus the other receivers that we have and myself, it’ll be fun to watch and scary for defenses.”

There are potential vulnerabilities in the Terrapin attack. At tight end, the talented Chig Okonkwo is gone to the Tennessee Titans, and with him his receiving and blocking prowess at the position.

“That guy was a complete player,” Enos said. “That guy was the guy that we wanted to feature on third down, and the guy was a guy that on third and one we wanted him to block the edge. We didn’t have to take him off the field. or substitute to run plays. And that’s a very, very unique situation.”

A pair of sophomores will split time at the position, with CJ Dippre getting the starting nod and Corey Dyches backing him up. Both appeared in all 13 games last year, with Dyches scoring two touchdowns in the season finale at Rutgers to clinch a bowl nod.

“We’ve really challenged him to grow as a pass receiver, as a route runner,” Enos said of Dippre “He’ll be different than Chig. He probably won’t run 4.52, but that’s okay. He may run 4.7 and he’s got a six-five body with a wingspan, and he can he can get into high traffic situations and use his body and strength to catch the football.”

The other place that will need to grow as the season goes along is at running back. Maryland struggled in the backfield last season, finishing 10th in the Big Ten in rushing yards-per-game (136.2) and failed to break the century mark in rushing five times.

“I try to make sure that the the wide receivers and everybody understand … when we can run the ball, it helps you guys too” Enos said. “Because now they’ve got to allocate more people to stop the run, which creates more one on one matchups outside, so on and so forth. It all kind of rolls downhill.”

The ground attack did improve at season’s end, with the Terrapins totaling more than 200 yards rushing in their final two games. Redshirt-freshman Roman Hemby, who scored in the Pinstripe Bowl win over Virginia Tech, will start, and sophomore Colby McDonald, who tallied 167 yards combined in the final two regular season games, will also see time. 

They’ll do so behind a seasoned offensive line — “the most improved unit on our team,” says Locksley — that will aide the running backs and make the entire engine go. Maryland is returning all five starters there, one of only eight teams in the nation to do so.

“I think the veteran offensive line is going to do a really good job to help those guys come along and grow as they as they kind of feel their way a little bit, especially early,” Enos said “And I also think having a veteran quarterback standing there next to them will be a great advantage, as well, to be able to help those guys with any type of exotic looks or any type of things we need to make adjustments on.”

Defense

Maryland’s offense will undoubtedly be the featured act for fans. But if the Terrapins are truly to close the gap against the Big Ten East teams that many measure them against, it needs to come by generating pressure and turnovers on defense. 

In multiple games last season (see: Penn State, Minnesota), the contest went from competitive at halftime to getting away from the Terrapins in the second half because opponents were able to stack touchdowns.

“We gave up a ton of explosive plays last year. That’s been a goal of ours to eliminate that, and the first thing you’ve got to do eliminate that is for everyone to be fundamentally sound together,” said new defensive coordinator Brian Williams.

Locksley concurs: “I think most of all, it’s going to be about stopping the run and being able to limit the big plays. And I feel really good about the staff, I feel really good about the talent on that side of the ball.”

The staff features Williams assuming the full-time role after being a co-coordinator last season and leading the defense in the final two games. Locksley had initially hired longtime SEC coordinator Kevin Steele to run the squad in late January. He had agreed to terms — and even had his name on an office in College Park — before reneging and taking the same position on Mario Cristobal’s new staff at Miami.

Williams is in his fourth year on Lockley’s staff, and wants to instill familiarity with the system among his group which he believes will raise its performance level.

“We want to be able to install enough defense where we can scratch every itch, but we want to run a defense that our players know and that our players feel comfortable running,” Williams said. “I think that’s the best bet for us. And that’s where we are, and that’s the difference that you will see in the Terps on defense this year.”

“You can expect a different mentality,” junior linebacker Ruben Hyppolite II said of Williams. “He preaches to us everytime we have a meeting with him: mentality, mentality and more mentality.”

“You can expect that and you can also expect execution. I feel like that was our Achilles heel for the previous season.”

Hyppolite will get some new teammates in the linebacker corps after departures remade the group this offseason. Highly-touted freshmen Branden Jennings, Demeioun Robinson, and Terrance Lewis (who didn’t play in 2021 due to injury) all left via the transfer portal.

In come senior transfer VanDarius Cowan, who played 23 games at West Virginia, and true freshman Jaishawn Barham, the District Heights native who flipped his commitment from South Carolina.

“VanDarius is a guy that brings a lot of position flexibility … he’s a guy that could be a designated pass rusher. He’s a guy that has the ability to play behind the ball as a box linebacker. He brings a lot of versatility on third down,” Williams said of Cowan, who will start on the strong side. “He’s tough. He’s very instinctive and he’s experienced, as well.”

Barham, the crown jewel in Maryland’s 2022 recruiting class, has impressed the staff so far.

“I love his instincts,” Williams said. “Jaishawn plays very instinctively. Coming in as a freshman, we say, ‘Well, you know, we’ve got to teach guys what to do, how to do it, then they’ve got to understand why it’s important.’ Well, he’s in that phase of learning those things, but while he’s doing it, he’s showing instincts. He’s showing toughness. He’s showing athleticism, a lot of the things he showed in high school.”

Pressure from Barham and the Terrapins’ front seven would help to generate turnovers, which would help to perhaps close the margin between Maryland and the rest of the Big Ten. In their six losses, all to conference foes, the Terrapins turned the ball over 14 times and only took it away twice.

“The biggest thing for us is just being ballhawks, everybody.” Hyppolite said. “Whenever we make a tackle or whenever we come in contact with ball carriers, make sure we get the ball out, be ballhawks, just want and want to seek the ball. That’s going to be the biggest thing for us this year, and that’s what we’re hammering.”

One of those areas where ballhawks swarm is out on ‘Heeb Island,’ that is, the real estate occupied by junior cornerback Tarheeb Still.

“He’s a guy that is gonna give you everything he has,” Williams said. He’s a guy that you don’t have to say, ‘go’ because he’s gonna go. You may have to say, ‘woah’ but not ‘go.”

Still notched 55 tackles and 11 pass break-ups in 2021, as well as a spectacular, school-record 92-yard punt return for a touchdown in the Pinstripe Bowl. He and Jones will see action on punt returns for Maryland this fall.

“I think taking that one back in the bowl game gave me a lot of confidence,” Still said. So coming out this year, I think I can definitely do a lot of special stuff with the ball in my hands.”

Still’s secondary mate, Jakorian Bennett, also returns after leading all power-five conference players in pass break-ups with 16. Leading a category like that is nice, but Bennett would like to convert some of those break-ups into game-changing interceptions.

“That’s a big thing,” Bennett said “I think we only had six interceptions last year, and that’s not good. So we’re just gonna try to get our eyes on the QB, try to make some plays, and turn the game around.”

Locksley’s ethos for his program — “The Best Is Ahead” — can be found everywhere across Maryland’s facilities and in the minds of his players. So what defines success for the Terrapins in 2022? 

Hyppolite called Maryland’s Pinstripe Bowl win “a spark” that can lead to something more. “A Big Ten Championship,” Jarrett matter-of-factly declared when asked. “We know what we can do,” Bennett said with an air of confidence.

A bowl win is a sign of fertile soil for a program, but a .500 regular season record and a 3-6 conference mark highlight the opportunities to grow deeper roots in that ground. 

Locksley says the Terrapins have high expectations for themselves entering the season but doesn’t delineate: “If we play the way Terps are capable of playing, we’ll have what we want at the end of the year.” Maryland fans would be beside themselves should they knock-off the vaunted likes of Michigan, Ohio State, or Penn State — any one of which would likely mean the Terrapins are in the midst of something special.

Yet sometimes, like Locksley says, it’s not about who you like up across from, but who you lineup alongside — in character, proficiency, and execution — that will determine how far Maryland goes.

“As long as we just don’t beat ourselves,” Bennett said, “we’re good, man.”