After suffering the second loss of the season coming out of the bye week, Maryland head coach Mike Locksley admitted the frustration in the lack of execution in all three phases vs. top-ranked Oregon.
“When you watch us play, these guys play hard. They’re practicing the right way. We just, we’re not playing to our potential. We’re not playing smart and it’s so frustrating when you watch it because you see the plays that are there we have to make and we’re really close and this is what the frustration that I have,” Locksley said in his opening statement.
Maryland jumped out to a quick 3-0 lead after Jack Howes turned the opening drive into points, but the Ducks took the lead right back on their second offensive possession and never looked back. Three turnovers, including a pair of fourth quarter interceptions, sealed the Terps’ fate as Maryland falls to 4-5 (1-5), dropping below .500 overall for the first time since Mike Locksley’s first season as head coach.
“It's just these growing pains of having to go through this piece, and I can tell you, my patience is thin with it but as long as these guys keep showing up and fighting, I'm gonna keep coaching the crap out of them, and we'll get healthier. We'll get it fixed. We'll get back home and start preparing for Rutgers.”
Full postgame transcript from Mike Locksley:
Opening statement
“Obviously you’ve got to give Oregon credit, really good team, deserving of their ranking. [I’m] disappointed. When you watch us play, these guys play hard. They’re practicing the right way. We just – we’re not playing to our potential. We’re not playing smart and it’s so frustrating when you watch it because you see the plays that are there we have to make and we’re really close and this is what the frustration that I have. It’s not about the effort. It’s not about the way these guys prepare. It’s not about the way they practice. We’ve got to get it executed and to me, consistency. Today we didn’t play complementary football. There were – the offense played well, the defense didn’t then when the defense played well, the offense didn’t. Special teams today continue, the penalties on special teams. These are all things that we’ve got to get corrected pretty quickly. We get back [Sunday] morning. We can get these guys checked in and give them the day off but we’ll start preparing Rutgers. We’ve got to get this game behind us and put ourselves in the best possible position at home against Rutgers next week.”
On what happened on Maryland’s three turnovers
“It’s other factors. The quarterback’s got to protect the ball. That part is paramount for us to have any chance. The turnovers down in the red area, we put our defense in tough situation. They stood up strong. Some of them, we throw the tipped balls, man. These tipped balls where the execution of that where putting the ball on the receiver, the receiver outside of him making sure they do a great job of running through the outside half of the guy. When I watch it, when you see the detail of things, that’s the missing piece and that to me is where for me, I’ve got to get us to do the little things because everything matters. We have interceptions. I hate commenting right after the game but because it’s so emotional still for me because I thought our guys played hard and they’ve given themselves a chance but we still aren’t playing smart enough and taking care of the football. Good teams don’t need help and we helped them today.”
On the Terrance Ferguson TD that appeared he stepped out, but was upheld after review
“The call stands. So that means they made the call on the field. It was a touchdown. It was that – when they say it stands, typically, that means they can't determine and so whatever they call the field is what it is. I thought he clearly stepped out of bounds but you know what, that play, it's an important play but we still had other opportunities.”
On the momentum swing vs. Oregon
“It started in the first half when we scored to cut it down and then we let them drive down the field. And that's the complimentary like, that's where, when we finally get the offense going, and we need the defense to get off the field on third down. They struggled in the first half getting off the field on third down. And then on offense, our defense got going in the second half and we just kind of didn't execute and didn't perform at the level we need to. Man, when you playing good teams like Oregon, they do not need help. And that's why I'm so frustrated because the guys are putting in the work. They're preparing the right way. They’re practice in the right way. It's just these growing pains of having to go through this piece, and I can tell you, my patience is thin with it but as long as these guys keep showing up and fighting, I'm gonna keep coaching the crap out of them, and we'll get healthier. We'll get it fixed. We'll get back home and start preparing for Rutgers.”
On the coverage against QB Billy Edwards
“Everybody's dropping and playing – dropping eight. They're playing over top of everything and not rushing our quarterback. And today, you saw Billy had to make some plays with his feet in the second half, where when they drop eight, there's not a lot of open places to throw it in. The quarterback has to get check downs or run it and I saw them make a couple plays. We challenged him like, you know what Billy, you're gonna have to make some of these plays with your feet if they're going to continue to drop out in coverage to contain our stuff. And that's where we got to be able to run the ball. And when they're dropping eight, we hit a third down run where we were able to get a first down and just covering people up. The growing pains when you start a true freshman at left tackle, we're gonna keep battling. I'm hoping to get Andre Roye healthy which allows us to add another piece back up front, which, we gotta do everything right now, and that's my job to make sure we do everything correctly.”
On his thoughts on facing the division-less Big Ten
“It looked a lot different than it did now. We had divisions and, right now, everything's wide open. The new kids that came in, came into a pretty good situation. We've established ourselves in this league. Our guys have competed since we've joined this league and we'll continue to grow this program the way we can compete the way we want to.”
On the travel to Eugene and adjustments
“We did what most people do. There's a lot of philosophies. We did the research to come out early. I don't think the long trip had anything to do with our lack of executing things and playing complimentary football. I thought he handled everything for the most part about this trip the right way. It's an expanded conference, expanded room. Great things happen when you expand rooms like this and adding some people like Oregon to it, it makes it attractive for our league.”
On Oregon’s third quarter success
“No, it's not frustrating, because a lot of those things were plays that we expected. It's a matter of getting lined up. It's a matter of the discipline. These are the plays where we talk about. I mean, some of the things that they do, when you watch them on tape, they've always kind of lined up in formations. They fake punts, they attack on special teams. We've got to do our part and that's where the frustration for me is the execution piece, because very few things they executed against us today were things – we had a missed tackle on the fake punt. You get the ball tackled there on the fake punt, now all of a sudden, it's maybe not that good of a trick play, but their guys executed it, made the play. Our guys didn't. We’ve got to figure out how to make that play.”
On QB Dillon Gabriel and the passing game
“I mean, I can't coach Oregon and Maryland, so I would say that right now, we did things on defense early in the game that I thought gave us a chance. Again for us to win, we got all three phases have to play complimentary, and we've got to get the offense going at the same time the defense is going, while at the same time, our special teams either creating momentum or finding a way to either get us in position to score or make sure we don't do things to hurt us. And today, all three phases didn't necessarily execute when we needed each phase to execute.”
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