After suffering the first loss of the season, Maryland head coach Mike Locksley admitted his team “didn’t pass the test” against the Buckeyes as he offers his final thoughts on Saturday’s game before shifting attention to Illinois, the Terps’ homecoming opponent this weekend.
“I said again a week ago that it would not be about scheme, it would not be about anything other than big time players making big time plays in big time games and we didn’t make enough plays in any phase of the game. To have the two turnovers, we lost the turnover battle, we lost the explosive play battle,” Locksley said on Tuesday. “We’re a team that typically has a does a pretty good job of explosive plays and we didn’t manufacture enough and then we gave up too many on that side of the ball. So the recipe we use for winning, we didn’t get it accomplished. So didn’t pass the test.”
“As I said here a week ago, it would be a great test for us to see where we were as a program and obviously we didn’t pass the test. I do think the effort that we put into trying to accomplish something special of going up into Columbus and finding a way to come out with a win, I give our guys an A for the effort that they put into it in terms of how we prepared, the belief going into it, as well as probably three quarters of really good football. You can only ask as a coach that your players give you their best and that the staff gives me their best and I left off the field feeling as though we gave our best. Now, our best wasn’t good enough, obviously. You can see why Ohio State is ranked the type of way they’re ranked. It’s a tough, really good team, a tough place to play, they’re well coached and they did enough to win and we didn’t do enough. I said again a week ago that it would not be about scheme, it would not be about anything other than big time players making big time plays in big time games and we didn’t make enough plays in any phase of the game. To have the two turnovers, we lost the turnover battle, we lost the explosive play battle. We’re a team that typically has a does a pretty good job of explosive plays and we didn’t manufacture enough and then we gave up too many on that side of the ball. So the recipe we use for winning, we didn’t get it accomplished. So didn’t pass the test.
With that being said, we won’t let one game define the first half of our season and as I told our team, we’ve got to continue to love to win more than we hate to lose. And what we can’t allow is last week’s game to filter over into this week’s preparation for a really good Illinois team that’s well-coached, that’ll be coming in here for homecoming.”
“They’re a dangerous team. One of my closest friends in this in this conference is Brett Bielema. He’s a guy that I share a lot of things in common. He’s a good dude. He’s a ball coach. He’s done it the right way and he’s really elevated the Illinois program. So I know they’ll be well coached, they’ll be ready to play…They played Friday, I had a chance to watch a little bit of that game Friday night and they’re dealing with some injuries and things, but I think there’ll be getting some players back but they’re a dangerous team. Coming off of a tough loss where our players invested lot of energy and effort into that Ohio State game, it’s going to be important for me to get this team back and snap back to where we can create the momentum that we’re going to need to have for the second half of the season.
Illinois, when you look at them on defense, I mean, this is probably one of the best defensive structures that we’ve faced. They don’t give up a lot of explosives. They’re the type of defense that you’re going to have to drive the ball down the field. And I can’t tell you that we’ve been consistent enough on offense with being able to methodically just drive it down. We usually have an explosive here and there every series that kind of ignites us and we’re going to have to play really smart, really sound on the offensive side of the ball this week.
Take what the defense gives us. Their back end is really, really talented. Again, when you don’t give up the explosives and they play a lot of man coverage, we’re going to have to find a way to beat man coverage this week and they do a really good job of tackling and keeping the ball in front of them defensively.
Offensively, they’ve dealt with injuries at the running back position. They’ve got the Isaiah Williams kid that is a threat every time he touches it. Very similar skill set to number 12 that we faced at Indiana and then I think number four from Virginia. He’s that type of football player that we need to know where he is at all times because he is a dangerous threat. We’ve got big guys on the outside there that have the ability to go up and make the 50-50 plays. For us to win the game, we gotta win the P&10 battle and the 1st-and-ten battle on defense, which means, we’ve given up a little too much yardage in the run game on 1st and 10 or the first play of a series and it’s gonna be important for us to stop the run and do a great job of finding a way to win the P&10 in the 1st and 10 efficiency battle while also stopping the run.
As I told our guys Saturday post game, if we keep preparing the way we prepared the last couple of weeks, if we keep believing the way we believe we’ll win a lot of games. Again, it’s our jobs as coaches to try to put last week behind us. I can tell you it lingered a little bit, but we’ve got to, it’s my job to get us through it, to get a snap back. We’ve got to clean up the mistakes and continue to practice during the week the way we have all year and I think if we do those things, we’ll have what we want.”
“Obviously homecoming is something that’s really special to our campus and as I tell our team each year, homecoming, we’re the show. And so all the ancillary things that go on with homecoming should not affect us and our preparation because those are the things that our campus celebrates, bringing back former alums to campus and our job is to put on a good show. And so that’s where our energy will be focused. Hope to see a lot of former players back for this game, supporting this team and embracing this program. Our game captains for this week, Roman Hemby, Beau Brade and Antwain Littleton will lead us into the Illinois week.”
“It ain’t just a secondary. It’s the matchups they create where he’s a former quarterback, a guy that’s used to having a ball in his hand. They put them in the slot, they motion them, orbit motion. They find what I call touches for him. They try to get them as many touches as they can and it’s a lot like what my philosophy is that if our best players are usually getting opportunities, those big plays or those explosive plays tend to happen and he’s one of those guys for them that you see they make a concerted effort to try to get him involved. And whether it’s quick screens, the orbit motions, the receiver sweeps all the different ways and he’s a talented player. From the day step on campus day, he’s been a problem for defenses and I really got a lot of respect for the kid’s game.”
“I haven’t had a time to assess it because I’m hoping to get through this week, use that bye week that’s coming up right behind this game to give us that opportunity. Obviously we’ve got work to do going into it. Probably not prepared to answer that, other than that, as I said to our team, if anybody took a poll to say you get to be 5-1 at the midpoint of the season, you get to take it or leave it, I’d say that a lot of us would take it. We had a tremendous test against one of the top teams in the country that we didn’t pass, but I thought we put forth a valiant effort in terms of how you prepare to go win a game like that, the mindset you need to have to win a game like that. Now the next step is to go win a game like that.”
“This is an important week for us because this is really the first time we faced adversity. Like we faced adversity in games where we get down 14, but this is coming out of a locker room where at the end of that game, the guys were, they were low in terms of they know that we had an opportunity and that we didn’t do our part. Again, no discredit to what Ohio State has done and Ryan [Day] and his program, but we always focus on what we could have done better. I went around the table with the coaching staff on Sunday and say, if you had one thing to take back from that game on Saturday that you would do differently, what would it be? And each guy had different answers. I had a different answer. I should have kicked the field goal on 4th-and-1. That first momentum drive, we should have kicked the field goal, gave a kicker a chance. Analytics say go for it but my gut was, let’s kick it, get points. We all have those. And guess what? Every player has a play that they like to take back from that game. And what we’ve got to do to find a way to win those games is eliminate those type of plays. Like, let’s get it done, find a way to make it happen, find a way to get it done. And there were enough opportunities in that tremendous test we had to where we needed to make plays and we didn’t.”
“That we still got some work to do. Against a really good front like Ohio State’s, we have to run the ball more efficiently. I’ve said this before, to win in the Big Ten, you’ve got to be able to establish and hang your hat on the ability to run the ball. Now there’s a lot of ways to run the ball. Some of it is getting into the phone booth with a tough guy. Sometimes it’s spreading them out and doing the things. And that’s where as a coaching staff we’ve got to figure out the best way for us to be able to run the football. We had some injuries happen. Andre Roye got his first opportunity to play some extensive time. We’re still a work in progress there. On the defensive front, it’s not necessarily about the size or our inability. It’s about being gap conscious, making sure we stay in the gaps that we’re responsible for. I thought for the most part, when you look at yards per carry, we do a good job, but I just feel like P&10, which is the start of a drive or 1st-and-10, we just haven’t won that down in distance where we put people in the third and extra long situations and make them play behind the sticks.”
“No, it doesn’t because we coached those things and now it’s a matter of continuing to coach. I always say there’s nothing worse when a coach says I told him 100 times. I said, well, what makes 100 the magic number? How about tell him 101 times, right? That’s the same thing for me. And so before the half of the last two games, when we’ve had opportunities to score, like these are situations that we literally have a Friday script. And I stole this from Uncle Nick down in Alabama, like hitting these situations that come up. And for the average fan, when you got 12 seconds on the clock with no timeouts, sometimes you check it down too, but we’ve been taught a check down doesn’t allow you to get the next play off. So it’s either throw it for the end zone, throw it out of bounds and let’s try to kick it. But it happens in the heat of the moment. And this is where I probably wouldn’t be as fat as I am, probably have more hair if I didn’t deal with the stressors that go with like 18- to 22-year-olds controlling your livelihood. But I love these kids, man. I’m gonna go to battle with them every single day. They don’t do it on purpose and I’ll continue to coach and I’ll continue to try to be positive. I’ll continue to probably nitpick. I’ll be all over the place like I am for this interview right now.”
[cont].
“For me. For me it’s lingered…yeah, because I second guess myself a lot. Like damn. You know, why didn’t I just kick it? But you always do that as a coach…if you love to win more than you hate to lose and I use this analogy. When you lose $100 bill, say for instance, you had 100 and you lost it and you’re looking around for it. It’s like twice as worse when you reach in your pocket a month later and find it. Now you’re just like oh, here’s my $100. But when you lost it, it’s like two times as hard to deal with. And it’s like, where did I have it last? And it just keeps replaying like your steps, what steps did I take? Well, I just found $100 in my pocket. I look at it like, here’s the $100. So I got to enjoy winning more than I hate to lose. And if you do that, then it helps you get through what I’ve kind of gone through the last 48 hours.”
“It’s a little bit of all of it. Our ability to cover up people, there were too many opportunities or times where when you look up and first level guys are unblocked. Because we make all these calls up front, like our center sets it, makes calls, you know, cage to 22 and then all of a sudden we go to run the play and we don’t cage to 22. So those are the things that kind of jump out. As I’ve said before, with the running game, sometimes it’s the backs man, pressing the ball there. Where you press it, you get the linebackers over the top and you bang it. So it’s a mixture of a lot of stuff. It’s a work in progress. I’m excited to kind of figure this out because for us to win in this league, we’ve got to be able to run the football and it’s a lot of ways to run it. We’ve run it a lot of different ways here, whether it’s with QB runs, whether it’s spreading people out, whether it’s getting in the phone booth with two tight ends and big people. We just got to figure out how to manufacture enough runs to consistently get the yardage we want to get in the run game.”
“It really is an important thing to our campus and I know Dr. Pines and all the people on campus and I know for our other sports that maybe aren’t in season, I mean, you know what it’s like to go home. I mean think about Thanksgiving when everybody comes home from college and everybody’s under one roof. Well, I mean, that’s what homecoming is all about. It’s about coming back, being able to reflect, bringing your families back to show, hey, here, this is where I went to school. We got a lot of people to take pride in being from this university. It’s a great institution. It’s a powerful degree, great academics, great athletics, the best of both worlds. It’s awesome. It’s a way to showcase and for us, we’re the show. So it’s about putting on a good show for the former people that are here to support you.”
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