Maryland spent the bye week drilling into what has and hasn’t worked in all three phases of the game, but the biggest takeaway was the potential change on offense with head coach Mike Locksley expected to become a bigger piece in the offense’s gameplan as the new play-caller. Following Friday’s loss, Locksley confirmed he called the plays as Josh Gattis “continues to serve as the [offensive coordinator].”
“I called the plays today,” Locksley said postgame. “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 [Gattis]. 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.”
It ended with the fewest points scored since Maryland was shutout, 30-0, against Penn State in November of the 2022 season. QB Billy Edwards finished 28-of-51 with his 51 attempts marking a career high, though the run game averaged less than two yards per carry. Felton and Prather were a big part of that as they combined for 158 receiving yards on 17 catches and 33 targets, yet Maryland’s offense amassed just three plays over 20 yards despite the offense outgaining Northwestern, 355 to 283.
“No, it's not by design,” Locksley said when asked about the lack of explosive plays. “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, you know, 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 down that 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 for a tough day. And for me, as the head coach and the leader of this thing, that's why I 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 decision on the back end with our kicking game ‘cause that's what's hurt us more than anything.”
Maryland will look to flip the season to secure its first Big Ten win of the season when they host USC next Saturday, Oct. 19 for a 4 PM kickoff.
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