The first practice of fall camp is set for Wednesday afternoon as head coach Mike Locksley tabbed it as “Christmas in August.”
“We get to open up all the new toys that we’ve recruited and developed over the last six, seven months here. As coaches, we look forward to the hands-on work we get to do with our players,” Locksley said on Wednesday. “We were able to do a few more things this summer based on NCAA rules but to be able to spend, as I told the team yesterday, 24 hours on football. They don’t have to worry about school right now, they don’t have to worry about a lot of other things other than this is the one time of the year where we get to just do football and I know we’re excited about that.”
Maryland will have a pair of key skill players return on the offensive side of the ball in veterans Jeshaun Jones and Dontay Demus. Jones added he’s been able to “do everything pretty much for about a couple of weeks” while Demus remains ahead of schedule. “This whole process, he was scaring me the whole time,” quarterback Taulia Tagovailoa added. “He’d get out of surgery and tell me he can run already. I think he was scaring the trainers and stuff, he’s just a competitor. That’s just who Demus is.”
Fall camp gives the coaching staff, as Locksley often references, a chance to “identify who the playmakers are and who steps up as leaders for our team.” But heading into the first practice, the energy and expectations remain high “The energy is palpable. They arrived yesterday and we just feel the excitement that our players have for this season. As I mentioned at the Big Ten media days, we have really high expectations for ourselves entering this ’22 season.”
Locksley cited three reasons why he was confident in the 2022 team heading into first practice.
“When you start looking at our roster and this is what has me more excited than anything is three things are really clear. One, we have talent. Two, we’re building great depth finally especially up front in the trenches with the [offensive] line and [defensive] line where we’ve been pretty thin here over the last few years. We have a ton of experience even though we’re still a young team. Not a lot of seniors, but we have a ton of experience in terms of guys returning and started. I think we have a total of 314 games that guys that have started that we have returning, 31 guys on our roster have at least started a game in college. Having continuity on our roster on our coaching staff is another really key to this excitement…the alignment that I see on the defensive side of the ball with Brian Williams at the front of the room. I’ve got a ton of respect and I know Dan Enos will continue to do a great job developing our quarterbacks and calling the offense and then with James Thomas and our special teams, continuing to build on that phase of the game.”
Maryland’s returning production on the offensive side of the ball has been well documented this offseason while the questions surrounding the front seven remain prevalent following the offseason departures. But miscues and penalties derailed Maryland’s 2021 season during conference play as Locksley reiterated “it’s still Terps versus Terps.”
“We’re going to gameplan for our opponents but I think what we’ve got to do with the expectations we’ve set for ourselves is play to the best of our ability and if we do that, we’re a pretty talented team. You look at us the way it’s been built but talent doesn’t get it done. Going out and executing does and that’s what these practices are for.