Mike Locksley on UCLA loss, state of the program, confidence in rest of 2026 season

4 hours ago

5 min read

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfRQ1h-4Gys

Maryland football fell flat for the second consecutive week, this time in the Big Ten opener after falling 54-3 against UCLA.

Everything that head coach Mike Locksley said following the loss:

Opening Statement

“Obviously, very disappointing result. Just wasn't good enough. Period. Give credit to Bob [Chesney] and his staff. Credit to UCLA. Came in here, played a very good football game. We didn't play well in any of the three facets for us to win. When that happens, the first person you look at is me. We have to take a hard look at where we are, what we need to do to get us back on track. Still got a lot of belief in this team. The guys in the locker room. I won't stop fighting or coaching for them. We’ve got a long Big Ten season ahead of us, and so now isn’t the time for us to hang our heads and have just like we do each week, get back in here tomorrow. Figure out what we need to do to get us back on track and head up to Nebraska for our second Big Ten game.”

On UCLA’s defense

“It definitely was to check our oil in the run game, and I thought early in the game we played the run really well. When we added the extra guys into the box, they put a little option into the game, which they hadn't shown, and we got to be more assignment oriented when they play option football. They made a couple of plays there in the run game where those explosives showed up. We got to get in the right calls with the right checks and make sure you get the ball down.”

On a near-two year losing streak in B1G play, why he’s the right person to lead the program

“As I said before, I understand the question. I own the result. That won't again – I can't claim it. That's something that we got to go out and earn every week.”

Whether he’s confident to lead the program

“I'll start with yes. I still have a lot of confidence in myself and the staff to get this thing fixed. Again, that'll have to be earned. I won't be able to claim it, and I understand why people will have to sit and question it? It's going to be - I'm [going to] have to earn it. I'm not going to be able to claim it up here.”

Whether he will have conversations with Jim Smith in coming days

“We have our base meetings every week, we meet on Mondays to go through the game, and I expect us to stay right on our schedule that we always have.”

Whether Malik Washington was left in the game too long

“I don't think so. What we wanted to do was obviously get him into a little bit of a rhythm. Again didn't play well. We got to help him a little bit by calling things that kind of gets him back into the rhythm. Our goal at the end, once the score kind of snowballed to where it was, was just to get out and try to execute some of our offensive things that we're going to have to do moving forward. And so we left him in there. The second [interception], they doubled the coverage. The corner came off his coverage, made the play, pick six, and you definitely like to have that one back for him.”

Whether Malik Washington has to carry the team

“Yeah, and again, that's a great question. He shouldn't have to feel he needs to carry the team. We still have enough diversity. We still have enough players. When you think about the receivers and the playmakers we have there, where the emphasis needs to be how do we get playmakers the ball? And today was one of those games for us on offense where nothing we called worked. Nothing Malik did was right. And what we got to do now is go watch the tape. We hopefully can get some guys back healthy this week in the run game. I think DeJuan [Williams] may have an opportunity this week to be back, and hopefully, once we get to the injury report, we'll find out a little bit more about [Iverson Howard].”

On message to the team, trenches

“Obviously, there's not a lot of messaging when the score is the way it was today, and that thing snowballed on us. The message is the only thing that we can do is look first and foremost at ourselves, me as the leader of this thing. Each player, the accountability I know they all understand. What we got to do now is go back, watch the tape. Again, make whatever necessary changes we have to make – whether it's personnel, whether it's scheme, whether it's play call. All those things go on the table for us, and we got tomorrow to come get it corrected, and then we got to focus back on Nebraska.”

Whether anything shows during the week that leads to empty gameday performances

“All I can tell you, and again, I totally get the question because the last two weeks definitely would lead to that type of questioning. But if you come watch the work that they put in Monday through Friday, there's no one that would have expected it. I thought we – the things we emphasized this week: tackling better, we tackled the ball better. We did not have the production on offense when you're, I think, 1-of-10 on third down or whatever we were with our third down percentage. Not sustaining drives, leaving our defense out on too long, which was the exact opposite of a week ago.”

Where the belief in the team sits

“[The] locker room. Just leaving out of the locker room just now and to see to hear the leadership that was being exuded by some of our veteran players that much like me, very disappointed in the way we went out and played. It starts with me as the leader of this thing to figure out the things we have to do. We'll continue to fix the things that we show that show up on tape. This week we worked on tackling. Next this week we got to figure out how to create some explosives on the offensive side, which we didn't get today.”

On the difference between execution on gameday vs. practice

“Every one of these questions, well deserved to second guess, and want to know what we can do better to get it fixed. It starts with again the leadership by me, making sure that we're doing the things in practice to address the issues. Obviously, when you don't have the ability to run the ball on offense the way we haven't been able to do the last couple of weeks, it puts a lot of pressure on the passing game. It puts a lot of pressure on the quarterback and the [offensive] line. Today, we didn't do any of the three well. We didn't run, block, or throw the ball very well on offense. I thought defensively, some of the things that we had to fix, it looked like we fixed them early. But again, not sustaining drives, not finishing drives on third down, you don't give yourself a chance.”

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