Who will be Maryland’s starting quarterback? Locksley offers few clues

When the Maryland Terrapins kick off their 2024 campaign against Connecticut, it will mark the dawning of a new era in College Park and college football in more ways than one. Here is the first Terps Top Three of the football season ahead of Saturday’s opener with the Huskies (noon, FS1).

Under center

Maryland got a first look at its post-Taulia Tagovailoa future in last December’s Music City Bowl win over Auburn, but that future truly begins Saturday. Who will lead that era still remains to be seen.

Coach Mike Locksley remained on message this week from spring ball and fall camp, honoring his promise that everyone outside of the Maryland locker room will find out who will start the 2024 season at quarterback when the offense takes its first regular season snap.

“I can tell you, there’s no doubt in my mind that I can win with all three,” Locksley said. “The guy doesn’t have to win the game for us. What we’ve got to do is play to the standard, practice and prepare to our standard, and I feel good about the quarterback room as a whole.”

The three-way competition between last year’s No. 2, Billy Edwards Jr., North Carolina State transfer MJ Morris, and Maryland third-stringer Cameron Edge has been decided, and the players themselves know the pecking order. But everyone else will have to wait a few more hours.

“It gives us no competitive advantage to name it publicly,” Locksley said. “They know who it is. We’re preparing the way we typically prepare where our starter gets a good portion, lion’s share of the reps.”

Locksley did offer a tell in one of his answers, dismissing the possibility of any multi-player rotations under center.

“We’re not going to get three quarterbacks ready. We can’t,” Locksley said. “That’s not the nature of of how you build a team and how you develop it.”

Brave new communication world

After a trial run during last year’s bowl season, the NCAA approved the use of coach-to-helmet communication across FBS for the 2024 season.

For Maryland, those players primarily will be the quarterback — either Edwards, Morris or Edge —  on offense and middle linebacker Ruben Hyppolite II on defense. 

The system will work much like the way it does in the NFL, with communication shutting off with 15 seconds remaining on the play clock or at the snap, whichever comes first. That wasn’t the case in Maryland’s Music City Bowl win, with Edwards saying he could hear offensive coordinator Josh Gattis up until the play clock expired. 

Sideline technology also gets a boost with the addition of video-enabled tablets. Like in the NFL, Maryland players and staff will get a real-time look at formations and schemes to make adjustments on the fly.

Another staple of NFL games, the two-minute warning near the end of each half, will be instituted in college football for the first time. The NCAA claims the added stoppage will better help the flow of games and keep networks from cramming in another commercial break immediately following a kickoff after a touchdown. Whether that concept is actually successful remains to be seen. 

The B1G gets bigger

Before Maryland joined the Big Ten, the conference had just 12 schools. UMD and Rutgers made it 14 in 2014. Now, the league has a whopping 18, the most of any FBS conference.

The Terrapins’ schedule draw over the next five years splits the new Pacific Northwest and Los Angeles-based schools, with Maryland hosting one and visiting another each year. This season, it’s Southern California coming to College Park for homecoming in October and Maryland visiting Autzen Stadium to meet Oregon in November. Next year, it’ll be Washington and UCLA’s turn to face the Terrapins.

Those additions mean the dissolution of the Big Ten’s divisions, a plus in the mind of most Maryland fans. Ohio State and Michigan drop off the schedule for 2024, but the Terrapins keep their other former East Division foes Michigan State, Indiana and Penn State, as well as Rutgers, whom they’ll continue to play annually.

All told, the Terrapins will travel 8,132 miles across the continent this football season, seventh most among the Big Ten’s 18 programs, according to Bookies.com. New member UCLA will travel the most — a whopping 22,048 miles — though the Bruins’ total is skewed somewhat by early season trips to Hawaii and LSU.