Maryland dropped its second consecutive Big Ten game in a matchup the Terps were never able to get it all going, falling to Indiana, 42-28. Everything that head coach Mike Locksley said after the loss and into the bye week:
Opening statement
“A frustrating, frustrating game for me as the coach. When you know you have the ingredients clearly there as we've got some talented players, but they just – it doesn't all come together the way you like it. I like to see the offense, defense, special teams all kind of carry your weight. Earlier in the game, defense did a really good job getting us turnovers. Offense struggled. Offense kind of got going to tie it up, and then the defense kind of struggled. So special teams today were hit-and-miss, and to me, that's where you kind of can tell the character of the team about how you play special teams. And we dealt with some injuries that maybe affected it. But here's what I always say, the injuries are part of the game, and we do things to develop our roster. So [I’m] clearly frustrated that we've got the ingredients. I gotta find a way to get it come together in one game. And I also say, let's remember – it's just one game. I know for us and as a program, sometimes we want to look at the big picture. It's just one game. And we had some individual players do some good things in this game. Some of these young guys had to, I thought that the complementary players would have to show up in this game. I didn't realize it’d be due to injury, but we did have some individual players do some good things, but just not enough of them.”
“So where does that leave us now? It leaves us in that we've got two weeks to sit in this. For me, it gives me a chance to kind of recalibrate and look at the first-third of the season and say, scheme wise, take a look at that. Personnel wise, take a look at that. Everything's on the board for us as we go into that next third. But it’s just one game. Nobody told us it was going to be a direct route to the top. And I still know that we've got enough talented players in it, have enough care factor about them. We'll use these two weeks to get healthy. Today, just every time I turn around, the guy was being pulled and out. And so what I've got to do now is go back, take a look at everything that we're doing, evaluate our scheme, evaluate our personnel, take a look at what we're doing and then get it fixed in the next couple of weeks. Have a big opportunity at home to get back on the winning side of things against a Northwestern team that's coming into The Shell.”
On the impact of the injured players late
“I [wasn’t] even thinking about it. Tell me they're out. It's next man mentality. We've recruited well. Everybody that's on this team are guys that I brought here. So I brought guys here that should be prepared and should have the ability to replace it. That's how we try to build this thing. That's the kind of the sweet sauce about when you create depth. Unfortunately, our depth is inexperience in probably two of the toughest areas, which is [offensive] line and corner, which are the two areas that if you're trying to build a program, those are the two areas that you usually are most concerned about. So we gotta take a look to make sure that we got the right people out there. But we also gotta make sure we're doing the things we need to do to help with their development and growth by what we call.”
On a status update on WR Tai Felton, Kaden Prather, SAF Dante Trader Jr
“Dante, his backup number six, Brandon Jacobs was out. Kaden, Tai. Shoot [Preston Howard] went out, back and forth, so a bunch of guys, but that's part of the game. I really don't concern myself. It’s just I have to make sure that I'm preparing those twos because this is what's going to happen, man. Indiana [is] a good team, and I think – this is a really tough league that we play in. And there is not a Saturday that we show up as the Terps, that we can just feel like we show up and win because every game will be a battle. That's what happens in the Big Ten. I'm aware of it. I gotta do my job to get our team prepared.”
On the atmosphere on the road
“Great atmosphere. I mean, this is what winning does for you consistently. We got to give, again, coach [Curt Cignetti] a tremendous amount of credit. Obviously his players think a lot of him because he looked and see he's got 13 guys that transferred from [James Madison], not a total rebuild because he's got guys that know his system and he's done a great job of implementing them. They're playing good, and today they turned it over. I mean, we won the turnover battle but lost the game. And so to me, that shows that there's other areas. For us, the first thing that jumps out to me is, scheme wise – are we doing the things that help our young [offensive] line? Are we doing the things that help our corners? And then we got to just keep looking at the personnel to making sure that we're giving these guys the opportunity to compete. We'll get better. I know that. We'll get better.”
On why the penalties continue to show up in year six
“I have to figure that out. I know that question is going to continue to come up. Until we get it fixed, you guys have every right to ask about them. As I’ve said before, it's easy. That's an easy, like a low hanging fruit to write about, because, as I said, there are times when I turn in 15 plays, 14 plays and eight of them shouldn't have been called. But the thing for me [are] the undisciplined ones, the ones pre snap and post snap. Those are, again – I've raised four kids and it sucks when they do dumb stuff and you're the parent and everybody's like, ‘you're a bad parent’. No, you're not. I mean, these kids, they're going to make these mistakes, and I got to get them fixed and I got to continue to punish them, pull them out the game and then you put somebody else in, and you got injuries. I'm gonna get that fixed. Man, I promise you that. I will figure this penalty thing out. We'll get it fixed. But as a parent, as I’ve said before, man, I preach about – y'all write about it so much that, again, it's to the point where I'm tired of talking about it. We just got to do the work.”
On why Maryland punted in the last two minutes
“I'm not going to get into game. At some point, we always talk about making some people quit, you know what? At some point, I don't want to get my quarterback hurt. We [were] already banged up. We have a bunch of people injured. We've got to develop our punt team… I'm glad we did, because it gave us a chance to see that we got to get that fixed too, the punt team to give up the block punt. Our punter is a weapon so I was hoping to change the field position and just end the game and get off the field. You know what? We weren't playing very good and I made the decision to wave the white flag.”
On the message to the team after an 0-2 start to Big Ten play
“One game. It's one game. That's the message. It's one game. People think it's really hard, and always say it's hard, but sometimes it's simple. It's as simple as cleaning up the things that you can control. It ain't that hard. And that's why, for me, when I sit up here, I'm optimistic, because at some point, you know what, you preach it enough. When I see the remnants of when some guys get it, and then I got a whole another wave of guys that I got to start teaching these things because they're being thrust into roles where they have to play for us, and they got to play smart. And again, it is that simple when you just think about it, because it's, let's make sure we have the focus and the mental energy to not have pre-snap things. The competitive penalties, I always look at them and those are the tough ones because as long as they're working the fundamentals, I can deal with that. It's just a pre and post-snap. But as I said before, I'm frustrated about it. As a parent and raise kids, it bothers you when they don't make good choices and good decisions and all I can do is just keep putting them on the bench, bring the next guy in and developing them so they understand.”
On giving up the touchdown to close the first half
“That's the middle eight man, and that's the point. We deferred the kickoff today. We scored, and I'm anticipating, because our defense was playing good. That's where I keep saying, like when you look at the ebb and flow of this game, there's times our defense was playing it the way we needed to we had offense just sputtering. And then when we finally got our offense going to get the score, to think we're going to have a chance to get the second half, first drive. That's where you steal that middle eight. This is like the third game I think we've given up points right before the half. And I got to look at that. It's on the tape. We've studied it. And again, the corners on the outside, we played cover two on the big one they caught down the field…didn't play the ball the right way. And I gotta get that fixed. Because, you know what, Dante Trader ain't gonna always be out there. And unfortunately, that's the case. And I can't do nothing else other than worry about things I can control, but I can control getting [Lavain Scruggs], [Brandon Jacob] who was out. I get [Jalen Huskey] we moved to the safety position today. I gotta get that fixed.”
On KR Braeden Wisloski
“He came in and made some plays. I need him to be more confident. Braeden is a – if he just plays with confidence. He's a good player. He's one of those players that I think he's better than what he is in his own. I think he's better than what he thinks he is at times. And I saw the ball not being confident. I saw him catch that ball. And normally he's the guy that we recruited, that I know can run. And if he trusts his speed on that play, just take off and it's a big play. So first time, it's an extended time for him. He got some quality minutes. You know what? That's how he develops. Unfortunately he's got to live with some of that. He did make a few plays for us but couple [of] times we lost field position where we need to cover some of those punts down in there. We start at the one, and, you talk about going for it on fourth down. We got to get him playing more confident because he sure is a really good player and I just got to help build his confidence and what he's capable of doing.”
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