Despite an extra week of preparation, Maryland fell flat at home on Friday night as Northwestern dominated from start to finish in a 37-10 finish. Everything that Maryland head coach Mike Locksley said after the loss as Maryland falls to 3-3 (0-3) with USC next on the schedule:
Opening statement
“First of all, really, really difficult game. Really tough one for me to stomach. There were some things, as I always try to tell you, there are some things that I thought were positive about the game that we can build on, but there's also a lot of places that there's still some work to be done. Again, up front, on the back end, up front on offense, on the back end of defense and special teams, returning decision-making of our returners. But here's what I'll tell you, no one’s going to be tougher or nobody can be tougher on us than we will be with ourselves and what I would be on myself. And that's just how I'm built. We're here to build this team to compete to win championships. Nobody ever said it will be linear. Today, we took a step back and we're going to find a way to turn this frustration into something positive and productive this week. It starts with the next game, which we’ll be able to hopefully use some of this from today as some motivation. But the one thing that I'll continue to tell you guys, we've got a good team and I'm not going to let what just happened or some of the things that have happened in our past dictate the future of where we're going. And again, it'll start with me. We made tough decisions here the last couple of weeks that will take some time that will be beneficial for us in the long run and I feel really confident that we can get this thing fixed and get it fixed sooner rather than later.”
On the fourth quarter turnovers
“It snowballed. We pressed. The thing we always try to pride ourselves on is not kind of looking at the scoreboard but as you drive down, we had two long drives. We get down in the red area, we don't come away with points. It's demoralizing. When I talk about complimentary football, it demoralizes you on defense some when you don't come away with the points that you expect to come away with. And to me, that's where, as I said, we'll find a way to take the frustration of some of the things. We had I think a 17-play drive, used a lot of clock but that's where we've got to be able to line up and find ways to finish those drives with touchdowns. And then, as you said, the turnovers, whether it's the fourth quarter or early in the game, you don't win games when you lose the big play battle and the turnover battle and today, we lost both.”
On the fourth down incompletions
“It’s not tough. I mean, we have to move past it. There's no other answer but to watch it on tape, figure out obviously, we’ve got to do a better job of executing on third down and even on those first and second downs. You look at the statistics of it, we had a bunch of first downs but didn't convert on third down, which has been something that we've been pretty good at. Today we didn't make the plays that we needed to make.”
On suffering a loss after the bye week
“It starts with me and making sure that I'm doing the things to jump start us. Defensively, I thought they got us the ball enough early in the first half. We had two terrible decisions – the fumble on the kickoff return where you lose opportunities, man. We've been opportunistic on offense. We're an offense that has to get those plays because of the type of skill we have, and when you lose a drive with the fumble on the kickoff return, you come back, you have the poor decision where we get pinned down at the one. We used a bunch of clock there, which to me, we're still a block away or running back maybe running through a tackle from those big plays happening. In the last two games, we haven't been able to hit the explosives the way we've been able to.”
On the strip sack on QB Billy Edwards
“I saw it. Our left guard totally missed the block. Obviously, we prepare our quarterback. Things like that happen. I hate that it happened to Ike Bunyun. He's competed well for us up front but got beat cleanly, and now, the quarterback has to mitigate the risk of not just giving up the football. Keep two hands on the ball. It's tough. We'll get that stuff cleaned up. We didn't play very well up front. I didn't help us. I gotta do a better job of helping us with when they're struggling, that's why we tried to run them all there in the second half a little bit, to take some pressure off of it. But again, we’ll use these frustrations to create some production this week.”
On whether Locksley called plays
“I called the plays today. One of the things I talked about is when we evaluate where we are, and I thought, for me, we're in a process of trying to create ways to be productive and that's in all three phases and one of my strengths is being able to help on the offense. It's a system that I know really well. Philosophically, I decided to take over the play calling. Today, Josh assisted me upstairs with the eyes. That's the learning curve because there's some different philosophical ways that I call it compared to Josh. And I think you saw a little bit of that today, but that's where I think you'll see, moving forward, the collaboration of how philosophically I want to call it, it'll benefit us, I think down along and Josh continues to serve as the OC, still a voice. He helps and collaborates and keeps it organized during the week. It didn't work as well as we would like to see it work today, but it showed glimpses of what it can be.”
On whether there was anything specifically that frustrated Locksley
“It’s putting out the fires of a young team. One week it’s penalties. Today, we had I think three penalties. So we get that fixed, and that's now, all of a sudden, the turnovers show up which we haven't turned the ball over and we made a big emphasis of that. The big plays are the ones that concern me and that's where, philosophically, with me becoming more involved, and me taking over that part of it, continuing to find ways to generate these explosives for the Tai Feltons, the Roman Hemby’s, the Kaden Prathers. What I'll continue to do is we'll continue to evaluate every phase of our program and continue to make the right decisions which I have a lot of confidence we’ll be able to make those decisions.”
On going with Ricardo Cooper over Braeden Wisloski as KR
“We are looking for consistency back there. We've had poor decision making by our returners in the kick game. Even late in the game today, we let one get behind us and those are the ones we got to be aggressive. [Wisloski] got banged up the last game and so we had – [Octavian Smith] was down. We have quite a few returners that have been out there to help us. Ricardo [has] been one of those guys that we've been developing for about two years and he’s got the ability to make the plays because he's got a tremendous amount of speed. [We] got to protect the football. That's the part – decision making, protecting the football. Special teams only gets one shot, one kill. And we've had some poor decisions back there and we’ve got to get that fixed and I will.”
On the two late drives in the first half
“It starts up front right now for us. We're trying to make sure that as we bring along some of these inexperienced guys up front, and that's the part for me, because of the system and having run it for so long, how to help us kind of protect these young guys or inexperience. Ike is a veteran player, but this is game six for him at left guard. Andre Roye, coming off an injury and battling through. We've got to continue to find ways to help them. We tried to do that by spreading people out and running the ball today, which we were able to do effectively. But when you turn it over and you don't come away with points and you start chasing points, and I think that's kind of what happened there late in the third, fourth quarter. You start chasing and right now, that's not who we are.”
On the lack of explosive plays vs. Northwestern
“No, it's not by design. We have an explosive group of skilled guys on offense. And again, our goal is to try to find ways to get them the ball to where they can make these explosives. I mean, Tai’s made those explosives all year long. As you can see, Northwestern did a really good – and give them credit. They did a really good job of containing the big plays. I mean, we had a ton of first downs and six- and five-yard runs and catches but we weren't able to make the one guy miss, which that's something that we have recruited the type of players that have that ability. And now what I’ve got to do as we move forward philosophically on offense is continue to find ways to get these guys open in these situations and then now have a win. Northwestern found a way to do it. To only have two plays, I didn’t realize they only had two. When you lose the big play battle and we lost the turnover battle, it makes it for a tough day. And for me, as the head coach and the leader of this thing, that's why I’m really frustrated because that's not who we've shown. We haven’t turned it over like that. We've got to find a way to make a better decisions on the back end with our kicking game ‘cause that's what's hurt us more than anything.”
On what goes into evaluations in the struggles on the field
“We know what the issues are. The issues show up in that right now, when you're inexperienced on the [offensive] line, we got to do things that allow us to find ways to create value for them and the run game, you didn't see us in a lot of condensed formations like we've been in, and that's because it's right now, as we come off and try to do new things, the best running game for us is to spread people out. And that complements the skill that we have. And today, when we ran the ball from those spread formations, we were productive. The problem we have is once we get down into that red area, we have those opportunities where we've got to come in with touchdowns and not field goals. We took a bad sack in the red area. That's decision making and that's the stuff that when I talk about being frustrated, these are the same plays that we made better decisions earlier. Today, we didn't make those decisions and that's the part I got to get evaluated is to figure out why.”
Related Links