COLLEGE PARK — Mike Locksley is 80 pounds lighter entering his sixth season at Maryland. But his offseason wasn’t just about shedding pounds. He also wanted to get past the negative energy from critics who still aren’t happy with his football program, despite three straight bowl wins.
“I do therapy once a week. I get massages. I’m a complete makeover of who I am,” Locksley said. “And y’all ain’t gonna piss me off. You ain’t going to see angry Locks no more. Cause you know what? What’s the worst thing can happen? I fail publicly? Well, I think I’ve done that a few times or two.”
The end of Taulia Tagovailoa’s time as leader of the offense marks an inflection point for Terrapins. No one will be able to replace the production of the Big Ten’s all-time passing yards leader, leading many to predict Maryland’s upward trajectory is about to take a detour.
Locksley, though, sees Tagovailoa’s graduation less as a hole to be filled by either last year’s No. 2 Billy Edwards Jr., North Carolina State transfer M.J. Morris or reserve Cam Edge and more as an enshrinement of the culture he’s labored to create.
“What he’s done for his legacy is not just being the all-time passer in the Big Ten … what he was also able to do was leave a legacy on what the preparation and what the standard is for the room,” Locksley said. “And we’ll be forever grateful.”
Finally achieving a baseline for his player-driven culture has had a freeing effect on Locksley — “My give-a-damn gauge is on E” — with the coach literally and figuratively no longer carrying the weight of other’s expectations for his program.
“Everything’s coming from a player now. It’s never coming from a coach like it used to be,” defensive back Dante Trader Jr. said. “We’re no longer waiting for our coach to yell at somebody. Now we’re gonna be able to do it.”
Locksley is more of a campaigner this year than in seasons past, especially in calling for more fans to show up to see his program that’s posted three consecutive seasons of at least seven wins.
“We’ve done our part, or have tried to do our part to their liking. Well, to take the program to a championship level, we gotta have championship-level support, fans, people coming in,” Locksley said.
His words aren’t just idle speech. Locksley and Maryland have branched out and boosted their efforts to get attention, from bringing spring practices to Baltimore and D.C’s Ballou High School to inviting Maryland Gov. Wes Moore to suit up for some camp warm-ups and rapper Wale, a Prince George’s County native, to attend practices and be around the program.
“We’ve got to do our part by winning — ‘Win some big games, Locks, shut your mouth and win some games’ — I get it,” Locksley said, “but it’ll be a lot easier to win some games and shut my mouth if I can keep the top players here because we got fans in the stands early, staying late, rabid fans that don’t care win, lose or draw.
Even though only five starters return on offense, three of them are at playmaking positions: running back Roman Hemby and receivers Tai Felton and Kaden Prather. The lack of incumbents at multiple positions has in many ways been a benefit, not a detriment.
“What I’ve found over the last few years is that the competition is what really has helped us improve,” Locksley said, “and it helps you get better when you compete.”
Locksley himself has moved back into the quarterback room, providing a two-fold benefit. It’s allowed him more involvement in teaching the offense to a new starter for the first time in four seasons and opened up another slot on his staff, which he used to hire former James Madison assistant Damien Wroblewski to help accelerate development on the offensive line.
“Up front is the toughest and the longest to develop players,” Locksley said. “And we’ve done everything based on the resources that we’ve been given to be able to try to expedite how we develop our guys up front.’
Remaking an offensive line isn’t new for Maryland. After returning all five starters two seasons ago, current Las Vegas Raider D.J. Glaze was the only player with starting experience on the line entering last season.
To supercharge that process, Locksley hit the transfer portal. Aliou Bah (Georgia), Josh Kaltenberger (Purdue) and Alan Herron (Shorter) are new arrivals, as is Issac Bunyun, though that’s more of a ‘new to him” circumstance as he’s swapped sides from defense to offense for 2024.
“I put a big emphasis on developing and making sure, how do we develop them quicker? Because it takes three years, but I ain’t got three years,” Locksley said. “I’ve been bragging about ‘em, I hope they proved themselves right and prove me right.”
While the offense may be a little slow to cook at the outset, the Terrapins’ defense is a well-seasoned dish.
“Offensively, we were a little ahead of schedule because we had a quarterback that had the ability to make plays, and we always recruited skill,” Locksley said. “Well now, the comfort level is that our defense is salty. A lot of veteran players that have played a lot of football.”
Returning seven of 11 starters, the unit has given up eight fewer points per game since coordinator Brian Williams took over full time in 2022, and last year’s 22.5 average was the fewest by a Maryland defense in 12 seasons.
“I think we can play with a lot of freedom now simply because we have the right guys everywhere. We check all the boxes everywhere,” said linebacker Ruben Hyppolite II. “Not only on the field, but off the field. So I think that’s where the freedom is. Not in the expectation that we set for ourselves but in the habits that we have as people, and then it translates to the field.”
Maryland’s inflection point occurs with that of the Big Ten as a whole. Southern California and UCLA were already set to join the league this season before the dissolution of the Pac-12 last August also added Oregon and Washington.
The 18-team conference is now the biggest in the newly-branded Power Four. Locksley, though, doesn’t see that as limiting or intimidating.
“With the talent we have in the DMV area, with us becoming a national conference, a national brand from coast-to-coast,” Locksley said, “it opens up the doors for us to share how great an area of the country this is.”
Embracing a big tent Big Ten — also now without pesky divisions — is part of Maryland’s overall mindset for 2024: to “shake up the status quo.”
“I want my players to dream big. I want them to think about championships,” Locksley said. “That’s where we are now. I couldn’t say that five years ago.”
• George Gerbo can be reached at ggerbo@washingtontimes.com.
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