Mike Locksley on Ohio State loss, Malik Washington's 64 yards, Dontay Joyner's debut

9 hours ago

4 min read

Everything that head coach Mike Locksley said after Maryland football's road loss vs. Ohio State:

Opening Statement

Credit Ohio State. Really deserving of their ranking. Made the plays they needed to make. You [have] got to execute extremely well against teams like Ohio State. We didn't make enough winning plays. There were a couple positives. I thought winning the turnover battle, defensively, the goal was to come in, and we had to limit the opportunities [that] Ohio State had. We tried to shrink the game on offense with longer play clock. We wanted to create turnovers. The goal was two. We did that. I thought they continued the fight in the second half, but ultimately it wasn't good enough. And for me, that's the part as the head coach. I got to make it good enough, and we'll be back home next week against Rutgers. Very winnable game for us at home for homecoming. We got to work our ass off this week. I look forward to showing up tomorrow, putting this one behind us, and starting our run."

On the defensive performance

"Getting two turnovers today was a positive for us. I think the limiting of the explosives, which to me, when they're the passing variety like they were today, that usually comes with leverage, eye control. I thought we had a couple opportunities to have a couple extra turnovers. I think we had a dropped interception by [Darrell Carey]. So, to me, it's the consistency of being able to limit those explosives at the most inopportune time."

On Malik Washington's 64 passing yards

"I mean, obviously missing some throws. I don't think his percentage was great. It's early to watch for me. I get to see some of it quickly on the the sideline with the the replay of the video. But I can tell you, usually when he struggles, it's not just the quarterback. It's whether the protection held up long enough, whether we created space.They played a lot of man coverage today. We ended up not creating enough space, but we also missed some throws. I thought the throw to DeJuan [Williams] early in the first quarter where he was down the wheel route down the sideline would have been a huge play. And to me, that's those plays that we got to figure out how to make, which to me, we got to watch on tape and get fixed."

On why Locksley still deserves chances

"My focus is on Rutgers for next week. It's not on anything other than that. My job as the head coach is to evaluate each week the things that show up on tape. I'll keep showing up tomorrow -- Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, with a plan to attack the issues that show up. Today, I thought we did a little better on those second and extra longs, but we didn't sustain enough drives on offense. And that's the best way you can stop the differentiator in the point totals is if we can sustain drives and get points, touchdowns in the red zone."

When the execution needs to turn into results

"Yesterday."

On Dontay Joyner's debut

"Well, one, the fact that he knew what to do. He spent a lot of time on the scout team, and with the injuries we faced that corner today, he was thrown in there. I think we were two corners short by the end of it and he got thrown [in]to the fire. I haven't evaluated it enough, but I didn't feel like he hurt us, and to me, that's a start. But until we get a chance to watch the film to see exactly the the nuances of how he played, I didn't feel like I felt him hurt us and he hasn't played football in a while."

Whether there's concern with slow starts

"Yeah, I've been a little concerned about them. A week ago, I thought we started a little faster after the running into the punter a week ago. This week, the three and outs don't help us. Our goal was to try to find a way to sustain drives, which uses clock. Today, time was one of the parts of our game plan that we didn't get accomplished. We were able to get a couple turnovers, didn't sustain the drives, which would have given us a chance to limit them on offense."

On giving up chunk plays

"It's the difference when you play man in zone and guys playing with great eye discipline on the back end. A week ago, we felt -- there were a bunch of a lot of air in our defense. Today we played a lot of undercoverage, where when you play undercoverage, the ball sails. And we had a couple interceptions or a couple chances at interceptions from making the ball sail. When we play man, is the way we got in trouble today, and we've got to be able to get the ball on the ground once it's caught, because they were catching runs and not the deep variety, other than the tight end and the blown coverage."

On giving up 200+ rushing yards in three straight games

"The tackling didn't show up as much as it has the last couple of weeks, which usually means it's gap integrity. When you see the ball squirt out of backside A's and B's, the way our defense is structured is every gap should be controlled. And as you watch the tape, the gap integrity in the run game is going to be something that's going to be really, really important moving forward. I know next week Rutgers, their rushing game, their running back is one of the top in the league, if not the country. So, finding a way to make sure our gap integrity is intact is going to be critical."

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