For the first time under Mike Locksley, Maryland football did not release a depth chart as the Terps open the 2023 season this weekend against the Towson Tigers. Maryland wrapped up what Mike Locksley called his “most productive camp” since being named head coach in 2019.
“If I could do a documentary on training camp, there’d be all types of great stories behind the scenes. This one was clean, and it verified to me who I thought we could be as a team, which is why when I talk about this player driven culture that has been established, it’s come through, and it’s real. And so, you know, what we need to do now, we’ve got the bus loaded up, we’ve got the players in the right positions, we’ve got the destination set, and now we’ve got to start our trip. And that’s what this Saturday’s all about for us.”
Towson will also open a new era for the program with Saturday marking the first game for Pete Shinnick as head coach. Maryland is working to overcome to unfamiliarity that comes with a new Towson roster and a first year coaching staff, but Locksley took note of the dominant D2 head coach now leading his alma mater.
“The challenge is this guy went to UNC Pembroke and got that team the fastest to the DII playoffs in the history of DII football. And then he broke his record at West Florida. So a good football coach. So the challenge is knowing that a team that we don’t know a lot about are going to come in here really well coached, really well disciplined and we’ll play with great effort. And so when you face this type of situation, which I’ve faced obviously the last few years here with opening opponents, people we don’t know a lot about, it’s going to be more about what we do than what they do. And our execution has got to be at an all-time high.
Everything that Locksley said during Tuesday’s press conference:
“It’s great to be back, great to have the first last day of the ‘23 season. Excited for the new year and excited for the potential of our team as we embark on the 23 season. I think it’s a group that I’ve really come to enjoy coaching. Going through training camp where we kind of forged the calluses that are necessary for us to get through a tough season. I enjoyed being with these guys. I think this was by far the most productive camp that I’ve had since I’ve been back here as the head coach and a lot of it is because of the type of locker room we have.
And I’ve been talking a lot about that locker room. And I know that we’ve made quite a bit of headlines with declaring that we’re now ready to compete for championships, which to me, I don’t know what the big deal about saying that is other than, it’s important that we now have the foundation that I think is necessary in the locker room with the player driven culture that allows us to go do just those things. It’s pretty cool to kick off the 23 season against my alma mater. I’ve got a lot of respect for coach [Pete] Shinnick and the staff that he’s put together. I mean, if you check the history of him and obviously being a Towson alum, what’s really important to me is we embarked on hiring a coach to kind of know who he was. And then the guy, all he does is win, whether it’s at North Carolina Pembroke, whether it’s at West Florida, to see what he’s been able to do with those type of programs and in a very, very fast time frame. I mean, he didn’t come in and I have to wait four years to declare championships. He did it in two, so that speaks volumes to the type of coach that that he is and how he’s able to get his team prepared to play.
I look back at my time there at Towson and very thankful for that opportunity of. A young kid from Southwest section of DC, ended up going to school up the road and it changed my life. The first person in my family to go to college and it was mostly because of the game of football and Towson, I’ll be forever indebted to what Towson has done for me and my family and in my life. I got a chance to talk to coach Shinnick after he was hired. The guy is a football coach and he’s a guy’s guy and you can see, when I follow them over the course of the last summer, as we prepare for him, you can see that those guys have really bought into what it is that he’s brought to the table. When you look at Towson as a team on offense, you know, their team is going to play with great tempo. Their offensive coordinator came from Stetson and has played with great tempo. They’ve got some really talented skill players, two receivers there that both 19 and 13 that are an experienced group. Their whole line, they have a bunch of returning starters on the O-line and they’re not small.
When you look at traditional FCS teams, very rarely do you look across the board and see five 300-pounders and they’ve got just that. Um, they’ve got a terrific returner skill guy in number zero, Diego and the job he did a year ago. He’s one of those guys we’ve got to really do a good job in the kicking game of containing, but also, him as a runner. On defense, it starts with 55 there, Mike linebacker, who a year ago played a little bit of the end on the kid right there from the northern Virginia area and it really is a game plan record. When you watch what he did a year ago, they’ve got size up front on the D-line as well. They’re a three-down team. So when you look at what they did a year ago with the previous staff, there’s not necessarily a wholesale change in what they did on defense because there’s some very similar things when we studied Towson’s personnel, but obviously looked at West Florida and the things that coach did down there. It wasn’t a wholesale change for the defensive philosophy for him. So something that we’ve been able to do and they do a really good job at it. So, we’re excited about this opportunity to be back at home. And open up in The Shell against, against a really good FCS team in Towson. As I’ve always said, you know, you only get one chance to make a great first impression each and every year. And for us, it’s going to be really important that we get off to a fast start to establish an identity as to the type of team we want to be this year. So it’ll be really important for us that it’s more what we do than what Towson will do. And so as we prepare for this game, most of our attention has been on our execution of the things we did well throughout camp.
And then we’ll have to do a really good job in the course of the game as coaches, when we understand and figure out what it is they want to do to stop us to make the necessary adjustments, which I feel really comfortable that we will.
We need the fans behind us. We’d love to have a bunch of people in The Shell for that game and to start the season to really, uh, to create a 12th man per se, or some home-field advantage that will help us as we’ve got some great opportunities coming up through our home schedule. All start Saturday and I’ll close with our game captains. We do weekly game captains and this week we’ll start off with three guys that came back for a sixth year, a COVID year per se. Colton Spangler, Jeshaun Jones and Fa’Najae Gotay will be our captains for the Towson game, all coming back for that COVID year that they’ve been given.”
“It wasn’t really personnel. I mean, obviously we have personnel things to feel, but we felt like we were able to fill those needs, whether it’s through the portal as we went through spring ball and then summer camp. The thing that we needed to find out from camp was worried the team I thought we could be. And you usually find those things out by, you know, when you go through summer camp and I’ve been here a couple of years and it’s the one time you have an opportunity to just do football for 24 hours. Right now we’re back into the 20 hour rule because of the NCAA rules. Our players took full advantage of the 24/7 football. I didn’t deal with one distraction during training camp and I can tell you, over the last three years, there’s been… If I could do a documentary on training camp, there’ll be all types of great stories behind the scenes. This one was clean, and it verified to me who I thought we could be as a team, which is why when I talk about this player driven culture that has been established, it’s come through, and it’s real. And so, you know, what we need to do now, we’ve got the bus loaded up, we’ve got the players in the right positions, we’ve got the destination set, and now we’ve got to start our trip. And that’s what this Saturday’s all about for us.”
“Not from us. I mean, we took our summer camp schedule, our training regimen, how we prepared. You know, it’s the same. I mean, what’s different is seeing this. I mean, this is a pretty impressive to see this type of interest in our program. It’s exciting, but we know that we’re not going to let the goals we set get in the way of the work that we have to do.”
“The start of the season is always important because it’s about momentum. As I told our team yesterday, I mean, I’m not going to sit up here and make Towson Tigers, the ‘85 Chicago Bears. But they also need to realize that this is a team that a game like this can make their careers, make their season and the type of coaching staff and the type of program that they have. They’re not gonna come in here and just lay down. It’s gonna be important not that we focus on Towson, but that we focus on Maryland. And I’ve said this in here since I’ve been here very few times. We don’t prepare for Towson. Differently than we prepare for a team like Ohio State. We have a standard that’s set. Our players believe in that standard and they’re upholding the standard. And it’s going to come down to what we do Saturday, how we execute, and whether or not we play the Terp way.”
“I won’t discount the production that we had out of guys like Dontay Demas, Rakim Jarrett, Jacob Copeland and what they’ve been able to do for the program. So it’s not, we don’t skip a beat, but what we’ve tried to do with our program is we prepare for the days these guys leave. Because our goal is to help those guys create value, to be able to reach that goal, to play in the next level, earn degrees, prepare for life after football. But any program and I’ve been a part of some from ones that have been successful for long periods of time, it’s all about developing the program and that’s why I constantly talk about us being a developmental program. And you know, what I need to do is the leaders to prepare that we’re going to have players leave, coaches leave, but I have to have plans and processes in place that allow us to not take steps back when those things happen. And we’re fortunate with the guys we’ve been able to bring in Kaden Prather, Tyrese Chambers. Those guys are have created value at other places and now they have a chance to come help us. The younger players that have played for us a year ago, the Octavian Smiths of the world, Leon Haughtons, the Shaleak Knotts, those guys are now thrust into bigger roles, which because of the way we’ve developed them, they’re ready to go, and I’m excited to see what these guys look like going into the ‘23 season.”
“Of course I have an idea. I’m not going to share. No, we have an idea. We play a lot of players. I mean, you look at it the way we play receivers, the way we play corners. I’m the guy that kind of, the puppet master that goes into the meeting rooms and, you know, as coaches and assistant coaches having been there, you kind of become kind of a creature of habit where you want to play the guy that knows what to do, but he may not be the best player. And so my challenge is let’s get the best players on the field and do the things they can do. And so we got a bunch of receivers that have the ability, have played some games for us, have played places, other places. We know how we want to rotate them. They’ll all have roles for us. Roles change daily, roles change every game, and, and so I’m excited because that group is a talented group.”
“It allows you to be diverse in what you do offensively and to me it’s always been about getting your best players the ball and both those guys are guys that have shown from spring ball [until] now that they’re guys that we want to find ways to get them the ball and we try to do it based on what they do well, and then we try to develop the things they don’t do well so that eventually they get caught up.”
“I mean, the challenge is this guy went to UNC Pembroke and got that team the fastest to the DII playoffs in the history of DII football. And then he broke his record at West Florida. So a good football coach. So the challenge is knowing that a team that we don’t know a lot about are going to come in here really well coached, really well disciplined and we’ll play with great effort. And so when you face this type of situation, which I’ve faced obviously the last few years here with opening opponents, people we don’t know a lot about, it’s going to be more about what we do than what they do. And our execution has got to be at an all-time high. I just literally just finished a staff meeting with the coaching staff saying, let’s figure out what we do really well, and let’s make sure those things are in our game plans, and let’s get that executed. And then as we get into the course of the game, you know, the chess match starts once the game is played, and we’ve got to do a great job of kind of figuring out quickly what it is and how they want to attack us in all three phases, and then be prepared to make the necessary adjustments. You know, the one benefit we have is that, because we do a lot on defense and we do a lot on offense that there’s very few things that we’ll see that maybe we haven’t had to deal with because of the types of systems we were.”
“Let me throw in Latrell Scott, another guy with an impressive resume. A young guy at the time. He took [the] University of Richmond to the 1AA playoffs as a head coach, as a younger guy. He’s on our staff, Zac Spavital, who came in. He’s the son of a high school coach. So we were able to add some really talented coaches and I was deliberate in how we went about filling these voids.
You know, we lost some really talented coaches a year ago that had opportunities that they thought were better opportunities for them and their families. And so to be able to attract guys like Josh, like Kevin, like Latrell and Zac, I think it speaks volumes to what the University of Maryland football program has become.
It’s become a place that people see as a place they can create value for themselves. And so, both Kevin and Josh have extensive resumes in terms of what they’ve been able to do. I’ve been joking Kevin about the Johnny Manziel documentary that’s been out. Notice he didn’t show up in it to talk very much. Both experienced guys and having gone through some of those things, whether it’s Kevin as a head coach, Josh is a coordinator that’s won Big Ten championships. Their experience has been invaluable to helping us take the next step.”
Locksley on his journey from Ballou High School to Towson
“Well, one, my high school coach created the path. He knew Coach Gordy Combs at the time, was the defensive coordinator. I was one of those late qualifiers, which is why I have an affinity for those. I see my boss back there. I’m the guy that didn’t have a great SAT test score. And I also came into college with a little extra luggage. I just had a son, and so it was important for me to be able to be close enough, but far enough away to play a role in having a son at an early age. But obviously, the opportunity to earn a degree, and like I said, going to Towson changed the lineage of my family. I’m very thankful for that opportunity.”
Locksley on how the offensive line has developed
“It’s always important. I mean, if you’re playing in a big team, it’s up front that matters on the O line and D line. And we feel like we’ve got eight, nine guys that if today, up to today, have shown us that they have the ability to play winning football now. That doesn’t mean that the other guys aren’t good enough. It just means we have to continue to bring them along. And some of the guys that are helping us now are guys that were developed over the course of the last couple of years. And so, you know, we got a little more depth than we had a year ago. A year ago, we probably had seven that could play winning football for us in this league, and it worked out for us because we didn’t have any of the major injury things. We do have a pretty good understanding of who we are upfront. We’ve got some guys that have been experienced guys. You know, I’m fortunate. Like I said, the transfer portal giveth and it taketh. And to bring guys like Corey Bullock, who was an FCS All American, won the Black National Championship down at North Carolina Central and he is tremendous leader.
You know how great it is to have a guy that comes from North Carolina Central. And you’ve got a bunch of guys here who may bitch and complain about stuff. And I always go to Corey and say, ‘Corey, tell them what kind of snack you had after practice waiting for you.’ And not that they didn’t have snacks, but they live pretty good here.
So, one of the things we’ve tried to do when we address going into the portal is I like guys that have chips on their shoulders that want to prove that they can play at this level and we’ve got some really talented guys, whether it’s Gotti [Ayedze], Corey, Mike Purcell, Dumervil from LSU. All these guys have come in and really been able to help fill the gap that we’ve lost when we lost some of those talented guys that are playing in the NFL this season.”
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