Jim Smith on Dontay Joyner's return, Maryland football's 2026 season, gameday experience

Ahmed Ghafir
2 days ago
4 min read

With fall sports back in full swing and Maryland Athletics and Maryland football set to kick off the 2026 regular season this weekend, athletic director Jim Smith joined 105.7 The Fan for the first time since the spring and dove into the upcoming season, including Wednesday’s decision to bring Dontay Joyner back to the program:

On bringing Dontay Joyner back to the program

“I think Coach Locks said it best when he brought Dontay back to talk to the team about this - when I say back this was not back to join the team. This was back to speak to the team about his situation and everything that had materialized and how it had impacted him. That really resonated with the leadership of this team, and the leadership of this team went to Coach Locks and said, ‘hey, look, we think Dontay is better with us than not’ and that started the discussion of bringing Dontay back. And we're happy he's back in school. We're happy to give him an opportunity to succeed both academically and athletically. And now he has got to make the most of it because this is a second chance, and he's got to make the most of it. And I give our leadership team on the squad the credit for recognizing ‘hey this is an opportunity to help a teammate and give them an opportunity to come back to the team.’”

On the upcoming 2026 football season, gameday experience

“It's going to be a great year in College Park for football. So it starts with Hampton this Saturday. It'll go all the way through November when we finish up with Penn State and we've really been listening to the fans to make sure that we're focused on the experience and it really create a really good fan experience for everyone who's going to come out to games. And that starts from, I may have mentioned this last year, but the whole driveway to driveway experience. So we spent a lot of time doing some nuts and bolts things on traffic and parking to get people in and out of our games a lot smoother this year. There's a great new Terp Tank that we've got this year in the general supporter section just above Section 16, which we hope to put you in the Tank, Bob…and we need to have some fun at these games and we're going to have some fun both in the stands, pregame and then on the field. Really excited. There is just a lot that's going on at the stadium. I could take you know 15 minutes to run through everything going on, but just really want everybody to know we're focused on the experience and making sure that our fans really enjoy their time here when they come to College Park.”

On the 2026 home slate

“This is going to be a really interesting year. Camp has been excellent, and I think the guys are ready to play. We're looking forward to Hampton on Saturday. It's the old one game at a time. Great home schedule. Lots of really good opponents. Going to be a lot of fun. Our ticket sales are way ahead of last year already. So we're just really excited for this upcoming football season.”

On the team

“I think you're right, Vinny. And it has been a good camp. We've gotten out relatively healthy. We had one significant injury at the very beginning of camp that definitely will have an impact. Fortunately, it's at a position that we've got some depth. So I think we'll respond well there. Malik has had a great camp and it's been fun to see. Last year was my first year here, and so watching camp this year, wow, it's a lot different. It's a lot different than last year's camp, and really excited to see us get out and play some real football because camp has gone so well. Malik's look good. Look, our running game looks good. Our receivers look good. There is a lot to like about this team, and I think we're gonna see that unfold over the next few weeks.”

On the state of football’s NIL

“I think you got to take those numbers with a little bit of a grain of salt, right? I mean, there's no accurate official assessment of what's going on in the NIL space. And to answer your question directly, is yeah, we are definitely making some progress, and I feel really good about the direction we're going. I think we talked about this last year, and I don't know if you literally laughed out loud when I said halfway through the season that we were going to keep Malik, or it was just just under your breath. But I think that was part of the message that we're sending is that we really want to keep our elite talent, our homegrown talent. And I think that's resonated with folks to help us along the way in NIL. We have a long way to go, but we're making really good progress.”

On Saturday’s opener vs. Hampton

“This stadium is our beach bash game with beach rally towels for fans so we're expecting close to – we’re going to have over 40,000 tickets out for this game. It is a Labor Day weekend, but we think we're going to have a really good crowd, great energy, and the students are back. They're really excited. I'll say I get to speak to the freshman class and all our new students each year before the season, they were really fired up. I was really impressed at how much energy they had for athletics. So I think we're going to see a good student turnout this week, and I think there'll be really good energy for our beach bash game here against Hampton on Saturday at 8 [PM].”

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