Maryland has shifted its focus from Charlotte to Virginia ahead of a short week with kickoff between the former ACC rivals set for 7 PM on Friday night.
“We had to get this thing turned around pretty quickly. Today is the equivalent of a Wednesday practice for us and so our guys got in Sunday, practiced Sunday night, which was a Monday practice and yesterday, Tuesday, obviously today Wednesday,” Locksley said on Tuesday. “Well passed looking back the Charlotte game. The thing I would say a reference to that game is that obviously, the things we needed to do to win the game were necessary, but they won’t be sufficient. And what I mean by that is that, we did some things, we showed character, we overcame adversity. All things that are necessary, but they won’t be sufficient for us to be able to get the type of wins and go to where we want to go as a team and so we put the Charlotte game behind us pretty quickly. It was good to see our guys respond the right way.”
Maryland will now look to move to 3-0 for the third consecutive season as they face their first Power Five opponent of the 2023 season.
“Obviously being in the Big Ten is a tough enough conference, but we do have some historical rivals that are always great for our fans to have the opportunity to compete against and Virginia is one of them and I know our fans are pretty passionate about that rivalry,” Locksley added. “Going into this game. I’m looking for us to clean up some of the mistakes that showed up early. We’re a team that operates better when we play with great pace, when we start fast and a week ago we didn’t and so we want to try to get that corrected. And we want to focus on coming out with the right type of energy and the right type of enthusiasm Friday night here in The Shell. And again, I’m hoping that we can we have an electric environment that our players can feed off of, that extra element of having a loud crowd here supporting us. Friday night gives us an opportunity to continue our quest to show that we were not the same old Maryland and I know our players are excited, once again to be able to play in front of a national TV audience here at home and it again, puts the university at the forefront where everyone across the country has an opportunity to see just what a great place we have here in the DMV.”
Everything that head coach Mike Locksley said on Virginia, their QB situation, Maryland’s offensive line, rotations and more:
“Short week. We had to get this thing turned around pretty quickly. Today is the equivalent of a Wednesday practice for us and so our guys got in Sunday, practiced Sunday night, which was a Monday practice and yesterday, Tuesday, obviously today Wednesday. Well passed looking back, the Charlotte game, the thing I would say in reference to that game is that obviously, the things we needed to do to win the game were necessary, but they won’t be sufficient. And what I mean by that is that, we did some things, we showed character, we overcame adversity. All things that are necessary, but they won’t be sufficient for us to be able to get the type of wins and go to where we want to go as a team and so we put the Charlotte game behind us pretty quickly. It was good to see our guys respond the right way. Obviously, Virginia is a familiar foe, former ACC rival. Haven’t been here at Maryland for over 15 seasons, and having been a part of some of those games, they’re important games for us. And if you look at the type of scheduling we’ve tried to do, this game is in great alignment with how I like to see our schedule. Obviously being in the Big Ten is a tough enough conference, but we do have some historical rivals that are always great for our fans to have the opportunity to compete against and Virginia is one of them and I know our fans are pretty passionate about that rivalry. Going into this game. I’m looking for us to clean up some of the mistakes that showed up early. We’re a team that operates better when we play with great pace, when we start fast and a week ago we didn’t and so we want to try to get that corrected. And we want to focus on coming out with the right type of energy and the right type of enthusiasm Friday night here in The Shell. And again, I’m hoping that we can we have an electric environment that our players can feed off of, that extra element of having a loud crowd here supporting us. Friday night gives us an opportunity to continue our quest to show that we’re not the same old Maryland. And I know our players are excited, once again to be able to play in front of a national TV audience here at home and it again, puts the university at the forefront where everyone across the country has an opportunity to see just what a great place we have here in the DMV. Our game captains this week, Amelio Moran, Kobi Thomas and Tarheeb Still will lead us.”
“He’s a little bit like a young Lia. He’s one of those guys that extends plays. He continues, he doesn’t give up on plays. You saw him make some big plays for them. Obviously a week ago as a true freshman to see what he was able to do was pretty impressive. You know, [Tony Muskett] may be back so we’re kind of preparing for both of those guys but I was really impressed with the true freshman out of Florida with how he was able to come in and kind of provide a spark for them.”
“The first one is the rivalry and what it means and the health of it. Well much like playing West Virginia, who’s a longtime rival of the University of Maryland, UVA is one of those games as well. I know our fans get excited especially when there are old ACC foes to have the opportunity to compete against them. I know we do it in some of our other sports here. So to be able to have this game on our schedule was something that I wanted to do obviously because of the proximity and because of some of the history behind this game.
As far as my relationship with Tony, I’ve gotten to know Tony really well. Obviously my time in Alabama, him and Clemson, got to know each other there. He won the Broyles Award the year before I won, so it was there to present it to me and then also had the opportunity through the coalition, he was part of our first Academy where we paired qualified minority assistants with athletic directors across the country to mentor and Tony was part of that first Academy and hopefully the coalition in my opinion, played a small role in helping prepare him for the opportunity he has now. So a lot of respect for Tony and the program. He has offensive coordinator, Des Kitchings is also a guy that has been part of the coalition and he’s part of the academy that we have this year. And so I’ve been really impressed with the way he’s managed his team through some of the tragedy they had a year ago and Tony is one of those all around good guys.”
“I don’t notice it in the moment but when you go back and we evaluate the game and kind of evaluate how we started, you get a feeling of the impact of what the crowd can have. We try to prepare our team to not allow external things be the motivation behind it, but it sure feels good to run out in the first quarter and see a packed student section like we saw the first week. I was impressed with the student section even through the pregame weather that we faced this past weekend and I’m hoping Friday night is one of those electric atmospheres which allows us to really put our best foot forward. Those things have more impact and the non-football things, recruiting and those other areas, putting us at the forefront on national TV so it shows really well and I’m hoping that we can, you know, have that type of crowd and that type of energy.”
“During my time, I was here obviously as a youngster out in the parking lots of, back then Byrd Stadium, when Virginia came into play and it was always one of those games that it was competitive. I can remember being here and I want to say 1999, when we had a chance, we were 5-6 and we played them here at home. Lamont Jordan I think broke the record here and over 300 yards rushing in a game and you know, we end up losing, Billy McMullen catching the fade in the left corner of the endzone to win the game and end our bowl opportunities. I know when Coach Friedgen out here, being part of his staff, the hatred that he had for UVA was real. I haven’t talked to him this week yet, but I’m sure that he’s still gets pretty pumped up about it. For me as a coach, hearing Ralph talk about it, obviously showed me just how important the game it has been. And so I expect that, when I had a chance to put them on a schedule, it was something that I thought would be good for this area and for our program.”
“It’s a rivalry. I mean, give it the respect that it deserves. I mean, there’s been a lot of history, a lot of years that that game and you know, I’ve got respect for those type of games and there’s no doubt that it’s, it’s still a rivalry but more for our fans than it is for us because of us being part of the Big Ten now.”
“Yeah, because of the quick turnaround, I had to use my time wisely and so for us, it’s the next opponent. We didn’t put any more things into the preparation. Now as we finish up here, as we get closer to game time, obviously, we have meetings where we talked a little bit about the opponent and we had our scouting report stuff which we tried to, again, because of how quick the turnaround was for us. But our players will understand it, I think they’ll have a better feel for once the ball kicks off.”
“Being able to start fast goes back to our players and the consistency. One of the things that jumped out to me is that some of the things that showed up in our lack of a fast start showed up in practice a week ago. And so for the emphasis for us, we talk about on the offensive side of the ball. One of the things I thought we struggled with in the Charlotte game early was just getting lined up and trying to be able to play at the pace that we feel most comfortable playing at. When you got guys not lining up at the right place and we’re yelling from the sideline or the right people on in there, those things are the things that kind of slowed us down. So we put an emphasis on to be able to start fast, usually simplicity needs to be part of it. And so again, we want to simplify and make sure that we are very clear as to what it is we want to get accomplished and all three phases and to me, that’s what allows you to play fast.”
“Whether we run it or throw it, you know, we’ve shown efficiency at being able to do both at times and I just think it comes back to being able to do both really well. We’re not a guy, a team that from an identity standpoint, that goes in and says, hey, we want to be a run team or we want to be a throw team. We want to be the team that does both of them really well and when the defense presents certain structures, have that ability to take advantage of it. We were able, last week, I thought because of the tempo we started playing with after we kind of got going to wear down Charlotte a week ago and that doesn’t necessarily mean that it will be sufficient for us this week. And so the goal is for us to be good at both throwing the ball and running the ball and protecting the ball in pre-explosive plays on offense.”
“You generally do but as I’ve said earlier, this turnaround was one, we played 7:30 at night. We obviously didn’t play real well. I think I got to bed around four o’clock Sunday morning, just in time to wake up and go to church and then it’s getting this game put to bed by three o’clock and then game planning from four to 6:30 or whatever. We had our team meeting to be ready for practice. So haven’t had a lot of time to do the history of it but what we’re trying to do is clean up some of the things that showed up in game two for us to make sure our team is prepared to play really well. As I said, when we get closer to the later part of our preparation, the Friday before game is when we kind of have a motivational talk and I’m sure there’ll be some things to explain just how important this game is to a lot of people. This generation is not growing up on rivalries because of the realignment and it’s just where we are today in the landscape of college football. But we’ll try to do our part to make sure our players understand that number one it is the next opponent, but this one is something pretty special to a lot of people.”
“It factors in. We look to see what the weaknesses are and try to attack them, but again, they know what their fleas are as well and much like us, we look to see when we self-scout what things we don’t do well, understanding that people are going to try to attack it. And so each week you work to improve in the areas that you aren’t strong and so I would imagine they’ve been working on trying to stop the run game. For us obviously, to be able to do both is still optimal for how we want to play on offense. Balance is not running at 50% or throwing at 50%. It’s being able to do both very efficiently. We still haven’t had one of those games where they both have really tied together and hopefully, we can put one together this week.”
“You have to in this day and age. When people play with tempo, especially on the defensive side of the ball, how it affects defenses. We saw a week ago the effect our tempo had maybe against Charlotte in the second half. Your good players, you want those guys playing really strong in the fourth quarter. And so, [Brian Williams] and the defensive staff has done a really good job of rotating players. I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you that the reason guys transferred typically is because they don’t play and so we try to find and create roles for all the players in our program, whether it be on special teams, offense or defense and so and because of the type of program we are, we’re always trying to develop and you don’t develop the players on the bench and so we try to find ways to create roles that allow each player to have some ownership in our program and we’re able to do that, that’s why I find us at our best.”
“Coming along good, coming along as expected. The more they play, the better they will be. We kind of made a change there at the center position and continue to create competitiveness there which I think makes us better. I saw both Aric [Harris] and Mike Purcell get better a week ago at the center position. Didn’t play as many that we played, obviously the way that game played out but we thought going into it we wanted to try to lock in and see what that unit looked like playing consistently together. And that’s one of those groups that when you’re substituting in there, you don’t necessarily get a good feel for the gel and how they complement each other. So we’re getting some guys back healthy this week and expect Gotti [Ayedze] to be able to play for us and that adds another element and gives us a chance to continue to evaluate.”
“Not really. We invite the kids. You know this area we do have kids that may be playing on Saturday and so those guys typically, you know, Friday night they want to be off their feet. It is what it is.”
“No.”
“He was able to save a touchdown that he should have prevented the big play from happening and that’s what we’ve seen is. As a young player, he shown spurts of being able to be a guy that we can count on but he’s gonna have some mistakes that happen that just come along with being developed. I will say he probably played better game one than he did game two. He got a little nicked up in game one so it’s really his first game playing banged up. He’s starting to learn that every week you got to bring the A game. Alex, you know he’s one of those guys, Daniel Wingate, I got to give you know, those two guys coming from Pallotti have been impact freshmen for us and it’s been, I’ve been pleased to see the way those guys played for us.”
“I think Lia makes friends with all those receivers because they all know that if they want the ball they want to make friends with him, Kaden is no different. You know, Jeshaun Jones, I think led us with seven targets. I think Kaden had five. Much like on the defense we try to be diverse with how we spread the ball around. Obviously, Kaden is one of those guys that we’ve gameplan, we say hey, how can we get Kaden involved to have a positive impact on the game because of the skill he has? And I think he’s shown it the last couple of weeks and we’re hoping that he continues to get better and as the chemistry develops between him and the quarterback, we’ll see consistency in that big play ability.”
“I think the biggest way it affects us that I don’t get a lot of sleep. So I get a little cranky by the end of the week, because, burning both ends of the candle. Like I said, late Saturday night game. Luckily for us, we didn’t have to travel back. We tried to let our players sleep in and we pushed everything back about an hour or two [on] Sunday, which gave us a little more time as a staff to get the film graded, to get all the quality control reports done so we can put Charlotte to bed and then proceed obviously into game planning. Fortunately, we have the type of staff or enough staff that we can do a lot of the prep work early. So some of the younger coaches in our program maybe started on UVA Thursday, Friday, Saturday, a week ago, just so that we could turn it around pretty quickly. But for us, today is Wednesday. I know you guys are looking at me like I’m crazy because it’s Tuesday, but this is Wednesday and our players are seeing it that way and Friday will be Saturday. So we try to keep it consistent with our weekly prep and just know that the players lost a day of rest where they typically Sunday’s their day off. They’ll go 13 straight days before they get a break which will be this Saturday.”
“I’m a creature of habit as most coaches are, but I understand the benefit of it. So do I like it? No. Do I understand the benefit of us playing on Friday night and national TV? Yeah. So the benefits outweigh maybe some of the things that it affects in terms of how we prepare.”
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