By Rock Westfall
The Maryland Terrapins entered Friday night’s game as 1.5-point home favorites against the struggling Northwestern Wildcats. Maryland departed the affair with a humiliating 37-10 loss that has fans exasperated and questioning if head coach Mike Locksley will ever get the program on track.
Maryland outgained Northwestern 355-283 but committed four turnovers, including a fumble that Aidan Hubbard recovered and turned into a 2-yard Northwestern touchdown.
Maryland is now 0-3 in Big Ten Conference games and 3-3 overall. Locksley has never produced a winning record in the Big Ten and has overseen a program plagued by inconsistencies. Maryland fans have lost faith and it’s fair to ask if the problem is Maryland football, Locksley, or both.
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Maryland Not Paying The Price
Mike Locksley is one of the featured characters in the outstanding new book The Price by Armen Keteyian and John Talty. The book discusses how to win in the current era of college football and details coaches who succeed and those who don’t. For anyone who cares about college football, it is a must-read.
Locksley is a sympathetic figure in the book, which chronicles his climb to the Power Four and a Big Ten head coaching gig by serving as an assistant with the Alabama Crimson Tide under the demanding, maniacal tyrant Nick Saban.
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Previously, Locksley flamed out in his first head coaching gig at New Mexico, going 2-26, including 2-15 in Mountain West Conference games. Just as bad, during his time in New Mexico Locksley was hit with a discrimination complaint by an administrative assistant. Although the claims were later withdrawn. it made for terrible headlines. Subsequently, Locksley was reprimanded and suspended for ten days because of an altercation with an assistant coach.
The entire affair was an amateur-hour production that led to Locksley’s eventual firing and disgrace. But as often happened with failed coaches, Saban gave Locksley a new lease on life by working in his college football version of a North Korean labor camp. While with Alabama, Locksley won the Broyles Award as the nation’s top assistant football coach.
The payoff for Locksley came in December 2018 when he was hired to become Maryland’s head coach.
In The Price, Locksley becomes a sympathetic figure as the head coach of the Terps. Locksley is well connected for the job as a local hero with deep recruiting ties to the top high school talent in the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia (AKA “DMV”) areas.
However, Locksley’s ties do him less good these days. He tells of the heartbreaking story at the end of the 2023 season when players he loves from the DMV continued to march into his office for end-of-season reviews, demanding NIL money and threatening to hit the transfer portal if they didn’t get it. It was the best illustration of what college football has become, and it’s not pretty.
Locksley surmised that his program is like Macy’s department store, above Wal-Mart but not close to being an uber upscale luxury level destination. Maryland is not in the elite NIL class compared to its competitors.
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Running Out of Excuses – Running Out of Time?
Maryland football is mired in perpetual mediocrity that precedes Locksley. It has not had a 10-win season since 2003, which was the third consecutive such season under Ralph Friedgen. He inherited a good roster from his predecessor – Ron Vanderlinden – who was fired for not winning, but did lay the groundwork for Friedgen’s success. Subsequently, as more of Friedgen’s recruits filled the roster, the success declined and he was fired in 2010. Since then, Randy Edsall, DJ Durkin, Matt Canada, and Locksley have been unable to break through.
Maryland last finished in the Top 10 in 1976 and has only one Top 25 finish since 2004. Far from Macy’s, the reality is that the Maryland program is historically more of a Dollar Store offering.
So, while Maryland has no history of being anywhere close to a Top 10 program historically, their pathetic effort against Northwestern justifiably demands answers regarding whether or not the Terps can be more than they are under Locksley.
There is also the myth that Under Armour founder, CEO, Chairman of the Board, and President Kevin Plank is going to make his alma mater the Oregon of the East. Plank has certainly been a tremendous asset to the program, donating $25 million for facility upgrades and initiating “The Best is Ahead” NIL foundation. Also, Under Armour has a $98 million deal as the apparel sponsor of Maryland athletics. Maryland is lucky to have Plank, but, like everyone else, he is not on par with Nike founder Phil Knight of Oregon.
Again, Locksley calls Maryland Macy’s, not Neiman Marcus. And as much as DMV prospects love Locksley, they love the NIL money of other schools more. In fact, Maryland ranks in the middle of the pack on the current NIL team rankings.
Still, Maryland should have shown more than what it did against Northwestern, a program with a much lower NIL ranking than Maryland and with tougher admission standards. Also raising eyebrows is that Maryland was coming off a bye week in which Locksley took over play-calling duties from offensive coordinator Josh Gattis. All of it is indicative of a failing program in crisis.
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In 2023, Locksley received a contract extension that pays him an average of $6.1 million per year and runs through 2027.
After Friday’s night’s disaster, Locksley seemed delusional and defiant.
“We’re here to build this team to compete to win championships,” said Locksley. “Nobody ever said it would be linear. Today, we took a step back. We’re going to find a way to turn this frustration into something positive and productive.”
A Maryland championship, let alone a 2024 bowl berth, seems like a pipe dream now.
Perhaps it is fortunate for Locksley that he is coaching at a school with a Macy’s budget that will spare him the firing squad, but plenty of good seats will be available for the rest of the 2024 campaign.
