Maryland head coach Mike Locksley took the podium for his weekly press conference on Tuesday as he reviews UConn one last time, looks ahead to the start of Big Ten play, what challenges the Spartans pose and the team’s mentality heading into week two:
Locksley on the UConn game
“[I] was really pleased with how we attacked what we called our liftoff of our 2024 season. I thought we played mostly clean football in all three phases – offensively, defensively, special teams – and got a lot of live reps. And to me, to be able to get that accomplished to where we were able to play a lot of players, get some good things happen in all three phases while still being able to take and make corrections when you have a chance to win is always a good thing. When you look at last week and leading into this week, obviously when you start thinking big picture about our team, it starts with we've been laying this foundation for this year's team from the time we got here. It's the start of new Maryland football legacy, to try to find a way to create a new football legacy for Maryland and like I said, it didn't start in last week's game. It's a continuation of what we've tried to do over the last five years here as a program and each game this season is another step towards us being able to do that.”
On the start of Big Ten play
“We have Michigan State coming in, obviously an early conference game. We had to start at both seasons in week one and week two – our start of our regular season, but then the start of our conference season and week two. And this is where in Indy I talked about starting the breaking up of the status quo. And if you think of this week's opponent, Michigan State, they’re a team in this league that's been one of the top five teams through the years and for us to historically, they've been a ranked opponent. I know two years ago, they were the talk of college football and what they were able to get accomplished. And so for us, this gives us another opportunity with a conference game this early at home, to continue to work on doing just what we talked about, which is breaking up status quo in the Big Ten. You do it with leadership. The leadership comes from our players. This has been a very player-led team, and we talked about it at the start of the season of how I've seen the ownership taken. When you talk about Michigan State coming in, Coach [Jonathan] Smith is new to the league. This will be their first opportunity to travel together under the new leadership that John Smith brings, and he's got a familiar coordinator in [Joe] Rossi, the defensive coordinator, who's we've went against his defenses at Minnesota over the years, really tough defenses, and he's from that Greg Schiano tree. Offensively, you know, the Oregon State system, a really physical system where they want to run the football, take the play action shots. And a week ago, they had a tough, tough season opener that they found a way to win. And if you look at the way this team is made up, they've got 61 new players and we've kind of been there before where you're implementing new players, new philosophies, new systems. And I would expect, like we think, making that jump from week one to week two, I would expect to see a jump on their side. Their defense looked really good last week. The two big stops at the end of the game to finish the game shows that they've got some guys over there.”
On the mindset heading into the Big Ten opener
“For us, it's one of the earliest weeks we've had a Big Ten opener. Like I told our team, the expectation for us is what we saw last Saturday is what we saw all camp long. We saw Roman Henry run the ball the way he did in training camp in the game. We saw Nolan Ray, who we talked about around here, the big plays he made in the spring and the ones he made. We saw those things, but we also saw the flip side of it, where we had some miscues. It's funny, we had a miscue on a play that what happened in the game, the same miscue happened. And so one of the things going to this week that we want to focus on this is what you see is what you get. The week of practice that we've got to have to go have success this week, we need to see it. We need to put the work in this week. And like I said, I do expect us to have a big jump from week one to week two.”
On SECU Partnership
“I don't know if you saw my Emmy award winning commercials with the manicure. So you guys, hopefully you guys don't get yourself a SECU Terp Script or M block card here. It's a great card – I'm gonna read my lines here – it's a great card. Has a ton of purse, especially for Terp fans like you guys. Discounts on the concessions and Terp gear. And I love wearing my Terp gear and the built-in rewards and benefits and community partners, so SECU, again, has been a great partner. And I say this in jest, but I really do mean it. It's been great to work with SECU, especially in this age of NIL and financial responsibility. Our players and the relationship that we've created through the partnership, I think will be very beneficial.”
On game captains
“Glendon Miller, Rex Fleming and Tai Felton will lead us in our conference opener against Michigan State.”
On the qualities that Locksley saw in Billy Edwards Jr. that made him a leader
“What you see is what you get. I mean, who Billy is when you meet him is who he is as a player. Very rarely do you see him get excitable. I think he has emotion and he's one of those guys that he's on both sides of the aisle, per se. Like you'll see him hanging out with the running backs, and then he'll be with the big [offensive] lineman, and he kind of gets along with everybody. And to me, when you think of a quarterback, it's a person that elevates the level of his teammates and always say yes to have the mind of a coach and a skill of a player, and those are characteristics that Billy showed early. A little-known secret man, Billy was like Lia’s brother's keeper. If I needed Lia to get somewhere on time, Billy as his backup was the guy. And they had a really strong relationship. I know Lia texted me immediately after the game that Billy had a week ago and was super excited for Billy so very similar characteristics. I think Lia left, like I said, that the work ethic that it takes to play quarterback in this system, that foundation he left for a guy like Billy and the rest of the guys in our program. But Billy has some natural leadership abilities, and he doesn't get excitable. He kind of stays even keel which you like to see out of a quarterback.”
On the challenges of playing an early Big Ten game
“I don't necessarily think there's challenges other than, we've got to get going right now. There's no easing in the conference play. And we know the value and what conference wins mean, because when you start running your mouth about competing for championships, [it] starts with being able to win in conference. Week two, traditionally, we've kind of built into our conference play, and it's here now. Now we played, obviously, that shortened season in 2020 where we played immediately, I think Minnesota, pretty early. But for this one, I think it's important for our players to understand, like there's two seasons in every season. You got your regular season, but then once conference play starts, these things become really valuable, really important. And I think for us, as we try to build momentum, it's important to get to get off to a fast start in conference play.”
On the play of the offensive line in week one
“I thought for the first time, five guys that hadn't played together in a game, if you're a football aficionado and you understand like what UConn did up front, movement everywhere. I mean some things like really tough stunts up front. The communication and the way those guys were able to kind of fight through it because there were some 50-50, runs where they hit us for minus yard runs, but then we hit them for a 50-yard run. I thought the inexperience of the [offensive] line, I was really pleased to see how they handled all of the stuff they faced in the game against UConn. And it'll only make us better because it builds a toolbox for those guys.”
On whether Locksley likes kicking off Big Ten play this early
“I don't know if you know, I don't get to make the schedule. The conference puts games and you know, I can help pick opponents of the non-conference schedules, but the conference kind of sets that that schedule for us. I know every team has to deal with it. I mean, we've had some early conference games throughout the time I've been back here as the head coach. So do I like it? I mean, I prefer to build into it. But you know, I've never been one to cry about opponents – when we play, where we play. I just like to play.”
On update on MJ Morris
“Update on MJ – he was out [Monday]. I hadn't had a chance to decide or find out where he is today just yet, but we'll keep you up to date as we always do with very little information.”
On rotating quarterbacks through the season
“As I've always stated, I mean, we have a plan in how we want to play the players in each game, how the game plays out, or going into the game. We come up with that philosophy. I think we're still trying to put the game plan together for Michigan State, but I can tell you, any time we have the opportunity to develop a second quarterback in our program, we're going to try to do it. There's some strengths that he brings to the table from a skill set standpoint, we’ll utilize it because we want to utilize all the weapons in our offense. We've got three quarterbacks that I said we feel we can win with.”
On Glen Miller, the maturity process for players within the program
“Let's go ahead and tell coach Locks the parent, what makes a guy grow up, man? It's like the voila moment. Sometimes it just clicks and they get it but I would say I started seeing Glen's maturity a year ago. I didn't just see it this year. I actually to the point where we had a jersey number open and usually they’re texting me, hey, coach, kind of switch. I actually called Glen to say I got a gift for you since I'm always calling you to my office because you aren't doing things that make me happy, come see me. And so he thought he was coming to see me to get in trouble again. And I actually said, you want to wear number one. He was kind of hesitant. I said, no, you earned it. You do things the right way. He's a guy that has a positive impact on his teammates, and we've seen that maturity out of Glen. What makes it I like to say, you know what, our program does. We take guys like Glen and they come in as 18 year old boys and hopefully they leave as 22 year old men because of the time they spend around the guys that Glen has spent time around, from Jon Hoke to Brian Stewart to Zac Spavital to Wes [Neighbors], all these guys that have had a chance to come coach and be a part of developing young men. And to me, that's what this program is all about. When we talk about family and our coaches have really taken on that responsibility of becoming that mechanism to help them take that next step.”
On facing Michigan State’s defense front seven
“Their two [defensive] ends – big, big-time players. Obviously, I had a chance to recruit Khris Bogle a little bit in my previous place, and really good player. [He] transferred in there from Florida. 27, their linebacker. I mean, every time I look at the depth chart, I'm like this guy is still here. It's like, he's been there for 10 years but he's one of those guys that's always around the football. They play good team defense. Their [defensive] coordinator is a guy that is well respected in this league. I know he's had Minnesota in the top ten in defense over the years. I know Jonathan went out and went to go get him. He was a guy that he kind of said, hey, I want to go get a guy that understands the Big Ten and I think they've got a pretty good understanding of what they want to get accomplished. But it starts with their front seven, and the physicality will create a different kind of challenge for us this week.”
On RB Josiah McLaurin
“It's been tough, man. Been a Terp football player, we had a tough summer. We lost, obviously, Isaiah Hazel. We honored. We lost JoJo Walker, kid I recruited out of Dallas, Texas this summer. Kenny Goins through a motorcycle accident. Just tired of seeing this trend. And then for Josiah, obviously, the little known story is that he really struggled this summer being here…like, every year I have one or two kids that I call kind of Locks’ kids and he became that because I know that he's from a small little town, really close with his granddad and his dad were here on his official visit, and he was homesick most of the summer, and we did everything we could to keep him. I said if we could just get him to training camp where football kicks in, and that's kind of what happened. And then the Saturday before he's supposed to check into his dorm, he gets the call as we walk out to practice that his dad dies in a car accident. Our team is a family. Robert Smith, who's one of our leaders, he lost his mom to cancer. So I pulled Robert I said, ‘hey, take him under your wing.’ We got this thing this year where every player each week has to get one person in the program that is my guy, like I got you this week. Like this week I got Dylan Wade and I've been texting him since Sunday. And so Robert got him and I knew during the course of the week that he was a guy that could help us. We actually put a play in for him expecting that hopefully it would do what it did for him. For him to get the touchdown on the play, that’s why you saw all the players on the team were so excited, because they all knew what he went through that week. We all kind of rallied around him. He didn't want to go home. He wanted to stay here with us, which meant the world to us because that means that he's adopted us pretty quickly.”
On concern over the quarterback hits against Billy Edwards Jr.
“One, if you look across college football this weekend, there were a ton of quarterbacks that took shots like we took, and that's not saying that I'm okay with it. One of the tough things, and we're talking to one of the officials that works our practices that's an official, is that quarterbacks aren't tackled in practice very often. And so far, linebackers and [defensive] ends and people that do this for a living, when they finally are able to be tackled, and now they only have the ability to give themselves up, giving themselves up, sliding, the timing of it. A lot of it, to me, is time. I don't know if it was, if these were intentional, but if you look across the country, there were a ton of these things and they're hard to police. But as you get guys ejected from the game, which happened in quite a few of them, I think that you'll see him get better at it as we get into the season because of the lack of tackling quarterbacks in practice. For our guys, I don't want our quarterbacks taking shots like that. I prefer them dive. We've worked on diving on the mats, protecting ourselves. Is their time and place for sliding and giving themselves up? For sure, but we want to get out of bounds. We teach our guys how to not take those extra shots. Some of it is just playing football. I grew up on the defensive side of the ball and I don't want to take the teeth away from our defense and there's some things we can't do that they can do, but I don't think they were intentional in terms of how they were but they were ugly shots.”
On whether UConn head coach Jim Mora addressed the hits with Locksley
“No, it was not a reason to. As I said I didn’t feel they were maliciously done. It's kind of that in between. Is he going down low? And so no and I didn’t expect to have to address it.”
On his philosophy on scoring late in games
“I don't know about running up scores. I've never, ever – I have too much respect for our opponents. But just in general, to run up a score, no. Now, I will say that when we play a lot of players, we playing a lot of players to get them experience executing our offense and we threw the ball on third down because I want to see my young quarterback get experience in playing on third down. I think most coaches understand that early in the year. As I said, I got a lot of respect for the game and our opponents and that Josiah was going to play regardless. That was a play we knew he could run, got it executed, and I was glad for the kid. But no second guessing on when it was done, or how it was done.”
On the benefits of developing a second quarterback
“In college football, and unfortunately, I've been here and been a part of it for 36 years that the second quarterback not having game experience, to me, I'm big on any time you have an opportunity and the second quarterback sometimes is a weapon, added weapon whether it's his ability to run, throw. Those things give you [an] added advantage and so for us, we always try to develop our depth behind our starters because we understand that the game is a physical game, and at some point, injuries become a factor. And when you're able to develop your roster as a whole, when guys are thrown in late in the season, it isn't the first time. And so that's just part of how we develop our team. The second quarterback is no different than the fourth receiver, the second or third tight end. We've got to find ways and opportunities to bring them along in our program so that when they are needed, they have the experience necessary.
A year ago, we used Billy in a certain way to where Billy can't throw, and then he throws me 311 yards. We'll use MJ based on his talent level. And he's a guy that has the ability to win in the pocket as a thrower and also has the ability athletically to run the system that we like to run. So we will continue to do those things with him. As I said, we got a third guy in Cam Edge and Cam’s strength is his ability to win in the pocket, throw the ball, His strength is also being in our system now for, this will be year three for him. It's great to have three guys that have that ability.”
On TE Preston Howard
“He was nicked up. He's been dealing with being nicked up. He's nicked up most of camp, and we've been trying to get him healthy. We're hoping to have him back this week, but he got nicked up in the game, hyperextended the lower extremity area and made the decision to pull him and give him a chance to rest. But I expect him to be back and available and being able to be another cog in our offensive system.”
On the production of the WRs
“With both Kaden [Prather] and Tai [Felton], and then you throw in Octavian [Smith] who’s in year three, and [Shaleak] Knotts in year three. These guys have played in some roles by some talented guys, and now it's their opportunity. Tai and Kaden are both guys a year ago caught 40 or more balls and both are very talented with run after catch. We just got to continue to find ways to get them their touches. I think when you get those type of players, their touch opportunities in the game, that's how you score points, and Josh understands that and it did a really good job of featuring those guys and getting into them in the right kind of situations.”
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