Mike Locksley on limiting Illinois RB Kaden Feagin, growth from DBs, Jaishawn Barham

The focus for Maryland’s defense this weekend will be limiting the production of Illinois wide receiver Isaiah Williams, who leads the Big Ten in catches (38) and receiving yards (503), but the Illini offense will likely be without another key name this weekend. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxsqeK__PEY Illinois head coach Bret Bielema said Monday that running back Reggie Love is unlikely to play against Maryland this weekend after being sidelined against Purdue and leaving early during last weekend’s loss against Nebraska. That means Kaden Feagin, a 6-foot-3, 250-pound true freshman, will likely lead the Illini rushing attack as the Terps’ defense squares off against its first power back of the season. That doesn’t mean that Feagin’s elevated role presents an unfamiliar challenge to the Terps. “We face that quite a bit because we have a 6-foot-1.5, 6-foot-2, 250 in Antwain Littleton and we do good-on-good and he's a powerful load. It’s one of the benefits of us doing team run where we take good on good reps,” head coach Mike Locksley said on Thursday. “We've seen backs like him and he reminds me a little bit of the guy from Purdue a year ago who was a big, heavy, heavy-handed runner. Just from the things that we anticipate, obviously with what they need to do on offense and when you read the things that they're saying, I mean, you would imagine that the run game is going to be really important because it's one of the areas that statistically we've probably got the yards per carry where we like it. But when you look at the efficiency of people being able to run the ball, especially on 1st-and-10, I would say that we're going to see that. Feagin set career highs with three catches and eleven yards against Nebraska while finishing with 85 yards on eleven carries against Purdue two weeks prior. The Illinois native enters the weekend averaging over six yards per carry while still looking for his first touchdown, but he’s a primary focus for Maryland. “We're going to see a lot of the Feagin kid and he is a young player, but like you said, really heavy-handed as a runner. Great balance and body control. He's a contact runner, meaning he has the ability to run through the contact. And when you face backs like this, the art of gang tackling where your whole defense. There's nothing more discouraging for a runner than when he looks up from the ground and sees 11 red Terps Script helmets looking at him and that’s kind of how we're going to have to play defense this week in terms of stopping a heavy-handed runner like the Feagin kid.”

More from Locksley:On DB depth & development “Whether it’s Perry or Gavin Gibson. Avante has started to take some meaningful reps for us as he's become more comfortable in the system. Lavain Scruggs, a bunch of these young second-year players are kind of right on track with how we like to see guys get developed. I think they're all, we're putting them in positions to where they have a chance to have success. I think they all have the size, the speed, the skill set and now it’s just a matter of getting them caught up with the experience. As we've learned in this league, and because of the injuries that take place, that we need to have them all prepared and ready to play. And I've been happy with their development thus far.” On recruiting WR Tai Felton out of high school “I think with Tai and if you know his story, he was very early, always a Tech lean, and we have gotten just, the Northern Virginia area hadn't been really good to us in that we hadn't been able to, as I always say, crack the code over there because it's a shorter distance here. To play and easier accessibility for your parents to see you play and he was a heavy VTech lean. I think obviously with us just getting here and starting the process of building this program, when you're selling a dream versus selling things that are already in place, which some of the other programs had already established, I think that played a huge role. To me, the thing that probably got Tai’s interest was our commitment to him. Because when he tore ACL, I'm not a guy that worries about it a guy having an ACL injury. We've got great medical staff, medical people here, and if they take a look at the surgery and all the documentation on the recovery procedures of it, if they say that it's not an issue, we're not afraid to take a guy like that. And I think that part of it, you know, I can't speak for Tai, but to me, I think that was the part that maybe hit home with him. Is that the loyalty we showed him even throughout the injury where we didn't back off." On reflecting on the opportunity to become bowl-eligible this weekend “I doubt very seriously that we'll sit back and, and reflect on the year, but we definitely, as I've said, I've gotta love to win as much as I hate to lose. And I do think we have to celebrate if we're fortunate enough to take care of business the way we expect to, to celebrate the fact that we've accomplished these goals. I do think with this day and age of the types of kids we deal with, the ability to show the positives of this is what you've done and this is what you've earned, to me will validate to them the importance of the buy-in. And we feel like we have that complete buy-in. Obviously, we've got a hell of an opportunity to continue to control our home field advantage where we've had success here in The Shell. A chance for bowl eligibility, an opportunity to go into the bowl week with the best record we possibly could have, to get some guys healthy and back, for the stretch run. All those things. The earliest, I think if we were able to take care of business, the earliest we'll be able to, to be bowl eligible calendar year wise since maybe 2001, early 2000s when I was here before, I mean, those are all things that, to me, you deal with the present more than we do reflecting on the past and where we have been because this is a natural progression of our program and it's to me, we're right on track of where we want to be and should be." On LB Jaishawn Barham’s growth in his second season “I think one, we joke and I love to joke about the personality traits he has in that, he is a lot very machine-like, very methodical in everything he does. But if you get to know him, the kid is a riot. Like he has a kind of a weird, kind of funny sense of humor. The example, we were at Michigan State, and we’ve got the bus driver to pick us up up there, we go to the stadium. He very rarely talks to anybody in our program and I come back out and after we leave the stadium walk on Friday and I walk out to bus one where the starters are on bus one and he's having a full blown conversation with a 70-year-old white guy with that's got a Maryland hat on. And I think I heard him asking who you're rooting for tomorrow. And obviously the guys from up there and he's like, well, I'm not rooting for anybody. He's like, come on man. And here he is having a full blown conversation and I'm just, I'm blown away. So he communicates when he wants to, and I think, I've seen him continue to grow. As a football player, he was already well-coached coming out of high school. Obviously, the time he spent at St. Frances and I know he started his career at DeMatha. I still think the sky is the limit for him as a football player, but it's been good to see the personality of...he's one of those guys that, as I always say, is part of the special forces meaning that if I need something done within this team and to get messaging across. If all of a sudden I say, hey, I don't want people asking about flight arrangements for next week for bye week because I don't give a shit about bye week right now, it's all about Illinois. If I pull Jaishawn Barham in and Antwain Littleton and said, that's what I want to get done, I would not have one person text or call me about flights for next week. That's the type of impact he has ‘cause he's one of those kinds of leaders that he doesn't throw his weight around, but they know.”

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