Mike Locksley on Maryland football's progress through fall camp, QB health, WR Ryan Manning, biggest concern heading into opener

Ahmed Ghafir
Aug 19, 2025
7 min read

Eleven days away from the season opener and with fall camp winding down, head coach Mike Locksley updates where his team stands, QB room update, biggest concern and more:

On Malik Washington’s health

“Better. We've seen him get better each practice. As we thought, he's probably a little bit ahead of schedule but doing the things we need to do to continue to get him back.”

How Malik Washington is being evaluated in QB battle despite being limited through camp

“We had him for a spring. We've had all those guys, opportunity to go through spring ball with. Any time you miss work, it makes it a little tougher but I think with all those guys, we've seen things that they're able to do. But to do it under the ball, under the scrimmage situations, those are the things that we haven't been able to necessarily evaluate. But we've got some good work this week, going and coming, so we'll be able to make some decisions here as we progress toward FAU.”

On QB Justyn Martin’s status

“A medical thing today. It’s a day-to-day thing…nothing long term. Typical things coming off of a scrimmage.”

What Locksley is looking for at this point of camp & ahead of opener

“It's always goes back to who puts us in the best position to score points. We keep the metrics. We do a lot of live situations that don't have to have scrimmage behind it. I mean, we go full speed, we go thud, we go tag off, all simulating real game speed and experience. And so the guy that gives us the best chance to score points will be the guy that we name. We have all the metrics we need to, from the time they've all been here, to make a decision.”

Whether the QB spot is fluid through non-conference play

“Those are the what ifs. I mean, once we name a starter, we’ll deal with the daily part of who the starter is. I can't answer future things like that. Our starter is named day one is who we expect to be our guy.”

On WR Ryan Manning

“Ryan has continued to do a great job over the course of the three weeks we've been in camp. He's a veteran guy that doesn't have a lot of game experience, but he's been a guy that we've seen much through the maturation we've seen some of our other receivers go through when you play behind a talented players. So definitely, Ryan has been one of the leaders in the room. He's one of those guys that you never have to question the amount of work that he's going to put in and how he prepares himself. Now, we've got to see him just do the things in game situations.”

On mentally preparing for the season

“Church on Sunday, 9:45 [AM], Zion Church, Pastor Battle. I call him coach Battle and therapy on Monday at 9 [AM], keep your mentals right. I'm around good kids. I got a great staff that takes a lot of the heavy lifting that we've had to do around here. And now I'm at a point where the program is on what I call a solid foundation to where I can really pay attention to the things that I need to pay attention to, which is ensuring that I'm putting the right people on the right seats on the bus and having them perform at a high level each time.”

On the RB room

“I think anyone has seen what we do on offense, the running back position is one of those positions that creates match up issues. When you have guys like Eli [Mason] and you have guys that have the ability like DeJuan Williams and Nolan Ray, they're all threats in the passing game as receivers, solid protectors, and they also have the ability to make plays as runners. This is a room that's kind of unproven. Nolan has a small body of work from a year ago, repping and rotating in, whereas DeJuan played a little limited role for us a year ago and then Eli has been one of our stalwarts on special teams and will continue to be like what I would consider like a special teams core guy for us. And he also has kind of carved out a nice little niche for himself as a protector on third down, a short yardage runner. We'll use all three of them to their skill set.”

On special teams

“As we start creating roles and the players start creating roles for themselves, you usually can tell a lot about a team by how they play special teams and the character of the team can be really told by just seeing the type of players. I come from a place where I remember Devonta Smith as a gunner on the punt team and you could not take him off. Derrick Henry, when he was a Heisman trophy winner, played left guard on the punt team. Damien Harris played guard. Shoot, Tai Felton, one of our best players a year ago, was also one of the best gunners we had. When you see your best players invest in special teams, it makes it easier for some of these young players who, when you recruit them to come in, none of them decided they wanted to come in and be the right guard on the punt team or the left tackle on the kickoff return team. But as they try to find roles and ways to get on the bus as we like to say for the first game, that third phase of special teams is going to be really important phase and this is where some of them can start to make a mark which builds trust in the coaching staff to use them in other areas.”

How the transfers have meshed with the current team

“Yeah, it's been great. We've had a core of those guys came in in time for spring ball, which gives us a little head start. And we had another wave of them come in after June 1, and then our freshmen obviously got in around Father's Day. So as I said back in Vegas about I really won't know who and what we are as a team until we kind of go through some stuff together. And I really like the way they're starting to mesh. We're doing some creative things to create the bond and the brotherhood and I really like the way this team is starting to come together.”

On the competition across the roster

“It's the old iron sharpening iron. When you have talented players, and I feel really good about the way we've recruited to bring players in. When they compete and go hard in practice and we're able to stay healthy, it makes us better. I mean, competition is what really makes you get better as a team because as we learn around here, from COVID on, that on any given day you don't know who will be out there and we're going to have to count on the next man up mentality and that's part of our standard. We'd love to have our starters and the guys that are playmakers for us be healthy 100% of the time but we also know the game of football is a physical game and we'll lose some guys down the road. And that's why we prepare two and three platoons and guys that have to be ready. Even if they get minimum reps, they have to get the mental reps and be prepared so that when their numbers call, they can step up and hold their own.”

On confidence in the team heading into the opener

“I'm a little concerned about depth. If there's one concern for me, we were one of the teams that kind of got down to the 105 that we were told we needed to be down by. And all of a sudden we can grandfather people in but old coach Locks helped a lot of the walk-on players that were in this program get scholarship money at other places. So we're not as deep as maybe we've been throughout the years. And depth is a concern because this is a physical game and everyone has a role, including our scout team. And so when you have players that help you prepare, you need those numbers. And so we'll do some creative things. We've been creative and smart and how we've practiced to protect our depth a little bit to get the good players that we need to have to the race on Saturday.”

On penalties, concerns heading into the season

“Obviously good teams don't beat themselves, and a year ago, we did some things that allowed us to help the people we played. And I mean, we ripped the rear view mirror off about last year. Every year, like we tell our guys after each play, that play is a four-to-six second shelf life and it dies. Well, whatever that team was a year ago is not here now. Until we start getting into the fire. I saw some things over the last few weeks that leads me to believe that we have a team that will play with more discipline and try to do the things necessary to not beat themselves. But we've got to go do it. And that's what we're working towards, to have the opportunity on August 30 in The Shell against FAU.”

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