Mike Locksley on Maryland football signing five-star Zion Elee, what addition of QB Nathan Bernhard means, WR signings

Ahmed Ghafir
2 days ago
10 min read

Everything that head coach Mike Locksley said after Maryland football announced its 16-man recruiting class in the 2026 cycle:

On high school vs. portal recruiting

“I've been on record [as] saying last year, again, due to where we were as a department, we made the decision to build our recruiting class a year ago with high school guys. And if you look at the success some of those young players had and value they created for themselves and for our program this year, the last year's class - and it was a big one for high school - is the foundation of kind of the next step for Maryland football. But you know what I like most about this one is, you know, 10 of the 16 guys that we signed - and it's a smaller class of high school guys because of the amount of freshmen and young players we had play significant roles for us this year. But what I like most about it is of the ten of the 16 are from the DMV area. We also dipped into some really talent-rich states that are known for football - Georgia, Texas, Ohio, Pennsylvania for some guys. 11 of the 16 will be early enrollees, which allows us to start the process of their development immediately. And so to me, those are the things that really jump out. I also think, as you look and see compared to I think we signed 26 high school guys a year ago or somewhere in that number, 16 for this year that we still have some work to do that will be handled through the portal to maybe replace some of the depth, which what I call the middle 60 of our team. And I'm excited about that part. That's the next transition for us is as we close the book on the high school signees for this signing period. Our intention is now go to the portal as well as retaining our current roster.”

On the emotions of signing Zion Elee, rest of the 2026 class

“Recruiting now, the way it's been, it's almost like you're relieved when it happens because there's so many things happening behind the scenes that the business side of recruiting, unlike in years past, before this new landscape has kicked in where the energy level but most of the work is done on the front end now and it's almost like anticlimactic because of all of the work and all of the energy put into just getting to this point. It's always special when pen goes to paper and today to see the guys that we've worked really hard on the last four years because most of these recruiting cycles aren't just one-year deals. To see these guys, I think it shows the character of this class. They're coming into a program that that maybe didn't have the success that we all envisioned. We did not meet the standard. We did not meet our expectation and to see that these guys still see through all of those things that this program has an opportunity to be something special because of them coming here. Those are the type of kids I love to recruit.”

When they all arrive

“It's a little different because one, you know, some guys will be here early, mid-year, some guys won't be here till June. Obviously, we still have more work to be done with the recruiting in the portal, as well as our next signing day. I think that's in February. And so it probably won't be until June like we faced this year. And as I said before, that's how the landscape will be now. We won't have our full team here until sometime around Father's Day, when you think about the high school kids that don't show up until June, some of the portal guys that may have to finish up academically at some other places before they get here. So we won't know who our exact team for 2026 will be until probably sometime mid-June.”

On whether it ever felt competitive to retain five-star Zion Elee

“I have to keep going out to every player in our program, every player that we recruit, every player that commits. It's not done until the pen is on the paper.”

“I never had doubt that we wouldn't keep Zion. I just continue to recruit like I always do. It's not done until there's they sign. And I've never - every kid I have to recruit, not just Zion. We recruit them all until we get their names on the paper.”

On local recruiting success

“I'm a local guy. I've had great success with local players. If you look at some of the top players that have come out of this area. As I've stated before, there hasn't been anybody more committed to recruiting this region. And that's not just while I'm here at Maryland. I took guys to Illinois, I took guys to Alabama, I took guys to Florida. I've been committed to the DMV region of recruiting from the day I left Ballou High School because I believe this area has been under-recruited initially for the type of talent that we do have. And so the relationships I have are very deep-rooted. It's based on authenticity. It’s based on trust. It’s based on the success that I've had with the players that have come and bought into this program. And so I think it starts with relationships. They do still matter. I know a year ago, with us finally getting into the landscape of the NIL and rev share, it was a learning curve for all of us, but we all have a pretty good understanding of what it looks like and relationships still do matter, as this class proves.”

On WRs Josiah Teasley & Jayden Kitchens

“I like both those guys. They have length and size. And for big guys a lot like Kaden Prather, who played here, and Dontay Demus who played here, which those guys fall into those type of comps. They really have linked to them, but also have what I call little man quickness, because some guys are long, fast receivers that don't have the short area quickness. For this system and the system that we run, the ability to have that short area quickness, to get in and out of breaks, is important. And both those guys have that ability. They both catch the ball, which is something that we've got to have improvement upon at that position and they both have shown that they can be explosive. And to me, this offense has always had receivers that have been able to be explosive and these two give us a chance to get back to where we have some really talented guys that will be able to stretch the field and make plays for us on the outside.”

Whether additional resources AD Jim Smith promised impacted the 2026 cycle

“The resources that Jim has committed to Maryland football, of course, they played a huge role in this class. The fact that we didn't sign 30, 25 high school guys, which leaves us room to go maybe fill some of the needs we have with guys that have a little experience. This past year, most of our depth came from freshmen. The one area of our team we felt like we needed to improve was the middle 60. We believe in a 20-60-20 model, where your top 20% of your team do 80% of the work but that 60% group is the group that this year, because of the lack of depth that really showed up and young players were thrust into roles maybe that they weren't physically more than the ability was able to have the efficiency and success at. And so, because of the resources that we have being allocated allows us now to maybe fill some of these voids in this class with some experienced players that we've done a really good job in the portal. If you look at the guys that have come in, played early, had success and been able to move on to the next level.”

On identifying talent in the recruiting cycle

“We have a roster makeup of what our roster has to look like. And we're very disciplined in terms of staying within those. We know how many offensive linemen we need to have in our program to run our systems. We know how many receivers. We know how many [defensive] linemen. And so a lot of the decisions made on who we sign and how many high schools compared to how many portal guys we take is based on supply and demand and what we need. Our process for evaluating has been really, really good. We've been able to evaluate talent, has been shown by some of the guys that have come through this program, whether it be high school guys or portal guys. So the evaluation process doesn't change. It didn't change. If anything, I think we've enhanced it bringing Gerald Dixon back and pairing him with Merci Falaise, who are two of what I call the most impressive evaluators in terms of Merci running the high school side of it, Smoke dealing with the portal side of it. Those guys and their experience and their evaluation, our coaches, the roles they play. Again, I want to thank all the coaches and staff for the work that they put in. And again, a small class that's going to be a transformational class and one that I'm really, really excited about.”

On the 2026 offseason schedule

“The ‘26 season started for us the minute the zeros hit the clock and I got done with the press conference that I had up there at Ford Field. Right now we're in the process of doing our end-of-the-year meetings, where each player is meeting with their position coaches. I'm evaluating my coaching staff. I've gotten the end of year evaluations of the coaches from the coordinators and we're all in the process now that we've gotten the signing day behind us, we're in the process of getting with our players, meeting with them on the things that they have done well and the things that they need to improve upon, and as well with the coaches. As well as the me, meeting with Jim and Diana, my bosses, to go through our end-of-year quality control here over the next couple of weeks. One of the things we will do is through our ability to still do some things with them, I plan on again, the football part starts now. We’ll have quarterback school, running back school, DB school. We'll start teaching the game of football from the embryo stage like we always do, but it'll start a lot earlier now than maybe what it was a year ago where we kind of gave them some time off. They went home and they came back, and we didn't get started until they got back in January. We're going to use this time up and through the start of final exams to continue to develop a very inexperienced team that now has gained some valuable experience, some valuable lessons that I think will allow us to see this thing transform.”

On what Zion Elee adds to Maryland

“I think anytime you recruit a guy that has the ability to affect the game on defense. We saw with guys like Zahir Mathis, Sidney Stewart, even CJ Smith, young players that really contributed and created value as pass rushers, as dynamic guys that are what we call game plan wreckers. And Zion fits into that mold. And to look and say, hey, to add another piece to our defense, which I think the Big Ten stuff came out today and if you look at our all-conference list, a lot of defensive players, young defensive players, were on it. And to be able to add a player of Zion’s caliber is a pass rush ability, the ability that I think he has to put on the size and weight and still maintain dynamic athleticism, the versatility. I mean, I've seen the kid play running back, I've seen him play receiver. I've seen him do a lot of things, which I guess shows the athletic ability of a guy like him. And I've been around here a long time and have had chances to see the Shawne Merriman’s and to see the Yannick Ngakoue and to see what Zahir and Sid did this year as disruptors on the defensive side of the ball. And I think what you'll see out of Zion is that type of ability, that type of value created and that type of playmaking ability on the defensive side of the ball.”

On the addition of QB Nathan Bernhard

“Obviously one, understanding our landscape, and when you play a freshman quarterback, which I've been a part of, I was there at Bama when Jalen [Hurts] started as a freshman, and we lost the whole quarterback room because the true freshman was a starter. Being able to add what we would call a quarterback like Nathan, who, if you look at his build, his size, very similar to that of Malik. Got great length, athletic ability - football, basketball guy - throws it well. Derek Kief wasn’t the only guy to see him throw. Pep Hamilton went up and had an opportunity to evaluate him as a thrower. Was committed to App State and we knew a lot about him. Sam Monachino who’s one of our young assistant coaches on our staff, was there and had a chance to get to know him as well. So he came very well evaluated and because of the comparable size and athletic ability to that of our starter, Malik, to add a guy like him to our roster, expecting that we will probably lose some guys from that position group. He was one of those guys that we had targeted very early that if we were to lose guys in the room that he'd be one of those type of players that we would want. We were fortunate to be able to get him up on a visit to last week, last home game. Really liked him. Really liked the opportunity to sit and meet with him, his parents. His dad's an orthopedic surgeon, his brother's an orthopedic surgeon. Think his mom coaches. He comes from a really good stock, but a super smart, really athletic and has some, I think, great upside as a quarterback.”

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