Mike Locksley on UCLA, team's messaging, how Maryland football is addressing depth concerns

Ahmed Ghafir
Oct 14
12 min read

Everything head coach Mike Locksley said recapping Maryland football’s loss vs. Nebraska and previewing this weekend’s road game vs. UCLA:

Opening statement

“At the midway point of our season, game six here and lot of reason for frustration for us the last couple of weeks of not being able to finish and get it done. But I also say that it's also a lot of optimism in our program because of how we've played this first half of the season. And so the frustration stems from knowing the kind of team that we have and the type of work that these guys have put in and the buy in that we've gotten from each and every one of the players, our staff. And then the optimism, obviously, because I know this team is different than any team that I've had a chance to coach here during my tenure as the head coach. We played very clean in games. We don't turn the ball over. Our margin of error on offense has been the three lowest margin of errors that I've seen. I think we had 5.8% of the plays we had on Saturday contained a self-inflicted - a drop, a fumble, interception, penalty on offense, a sack. 5% of the plays we had contain one of those self-inflicted wounds on offense. Our defense continues to turn the ball over get turnovers from the opponent. And so when you look at those small victories and the progress that we've made, playing clean, getting turnovers, doing things like that, what we got to do now is figure out how to finish in the fourth quarter. For the last two games, it's my job to figure that out and I think we've gotten to the gist of it. I see a tremendous amount of growth in this team each and every game we play. When we emphasize things, I see them work to get it fixed.”

On UCLA

“Monday, we shifted our attention to UCLA and it's a short week for us. We've got to get a lot of stuff done and we head out on Thursday morning pretty early in order to acclimate and get ourselves situated out there, out west. We've adjusted a few things in our weekly schedule. We're going a little earlier today. We've got a I guess the first fall break to where we don't didn't have class yesterday or today, so we can move things up, which gives us a little more time for recovery and rest on the back end. And again, we're excited about this opportunity. We're facing a team in UCLA that has been given life. They've coming off of a big road win a week ago against Michigan State. They're playing really hard for their interim coach, Coach [Tim] Skipper, who I've known him for a while. He's done a great job the last few weeks of rallying those guys. And you can tell they're playing very fearless. They're playing as if they have nothing to lose. When you watch them on tape, they're playing together. So I'm really excited about us to have a chance to go out west, get this thing back on the right side of things, to get back here and be able to have a bye week to get healthy.”

On game captains vs. UCLA

“Our game captains this week, Shaleak Knotts, Cam Rice and Bryce McFerson will be leading us as game captains.”

On the message about closing in games

“It's a double edged sword for me. Going into the season, depth has been an issue and so what I have to do, and this is, again, I always look at what things can I do better to maybe fix some of the issues. When you look at the way we - last week, we didn't finish in the fourth quarter, the last four minutes of the fourth quarter. We had opportunities to and I saw our tackles, the missed tackles really jumped out to me in the fourth quarter. I saw our lack of execution, our inability to make plays that are there to be made. And it was coming from most of our really good players, players that have made plays all game long. And so one of the things that I've come up with, and again, it's just really deep diving, is I got to do a better job of getting some younger players, some guys in a little earlier in the first, second quarter, to take some plays off of the veteran starters. I mean, if you look at the amount of reps that guys like Daniel Wingate has had to take for us. And a freshman like a Zahir Mattis and the amount of plays he has to play, it's my job to try to figure out how, instead of him playing 70 plays, how do I get him to play 55 plays? A young [Keyshawn] Flowers, 23, or Michael Harris, let them play a little bit more earlier in the game so that our best players are in the best possible position to make plays in the fourth quarter. And that's me. That's what I have to do. And what I've challenged each and every one of our people in our program is let's all take a deep dive into the things we can do. I challenge our starters, the really good players about it's not just me having to adjust to make sure you get and you can get to the fourth quarter. It's about recovery during the week. It's about your sleep. It's about your nutrition. Knowing that we have a smaller-sized team than we've had in the years past, it's up to all of us to make some adjustments to ensure we're playing our best when we need to. And I think our players understand that. I see it a lot more clear now and as a head coach and we’re working to get that fixed.”

Whether the losses can serve as necessary results for a young team

“I always try to compare and look back, and this team does have a little bit of a feel, I told our team the other day, they kind of remind me of the 2020 team we had here that was really the foundational piece. That COVID year was kind of the foundational piece which kind of got us over the hump. We had some tough losses during that time, found a way to win a couple and this team kind of reminds me of that 2020 team because it was a bunch of young players, first year guys. I think that was Taulia Tagovailoa’s first year as our quarterback and was an influx of talent that we brought in and it's similar to that. But I think the big thing for us is we just got to endure. I mean, endurance is one of the hardest things to do because when everything around you tells you to stop, tells you to it's not going to work, it's usually right before you have the breakthrough. So to play as clean as we’ve played with winning the turnover battle, not playing on offense, not having a bunch of drops and a bunch of things that cause you to not win. That gives me the optimism that we're really close to the breakthrough that we need to have. I’d like to see us get it fixed this week, which is always the goal when we head on the road trip. This is a big road trip for us, going out west. But I like the way that this team has approached it, and the buy-in that I've gotten out of them, even through two tough losses.”

On what sticks out about UCLA under interim HC Tim Skipper

“They're a talented team. If you're in the Big Ten, you got talent. I think the biggest issue is the mindset shift. There's something about the pressure being off of you when you're an interim head coach, which I've done that twice now. I call it playing with house money. I mean, you got zero to lose. You can go out call flea flickers, you can call double passes. You can onside kick. You're allowed. You can do whatever you need to because you got nothing to lose other than, hey, let's find a way to kind of get this group going. And coach Skipper has found a way to do that. That staff has done a tremendous job in a tough circumstance and having been there, I know exactly what they're going through. But I got to give credit to their staff and to those players of how they've been able to stay together and find a way to get two wins. And with that being said, we got to figure out how to go out west and get our stuff together and make the corrections we need to get us back on that side of the winning.”

On run defense after Nebraska RB Emmett Johnson set a career high on Saturday

“So I would say one, playing the run is mostly gap control, gap sound. I thought we played the run really well. Mean they hit, I think 163 rushing yards on three or four plays. So those are explosives. And to me, the consistency of being able to stop the run. I think most people that watch us consistently, we do a really good job against the run. I thought we didn't do a great job the last two weeks and back-to-back weeks of tackling, and a lot of it really showed up in the late in the game with the missed tackles in critical situations. And I think I addressed it for me, I got to do a better job of playing a bunch of the younger guys earlier to take some reps off guys so that we can finish on the tackles, so we can take the proper angles and get the ball on the ground.”

On the lessons learned from the cross country trip vs. Oregon

“I think we managed it the right way. The big thing for us is when you travel across is to try to acclimate as quickly as possible. So we're leaving here bright and early Thursday morning to get there so that we are there in time with the sun out to go practice. Supposedly, when you practice in sunlight, it helps you acclimate and get the acclimation in part and then we'll be able to do the things we need to do Friday like we would at home. I like the way that our staff has kind of set this up. We traveled. I thought a year ago, we played Oregon pretty well. I thought with the travel that we had, it'll be - I think we've done things the right way from that standpoint, but it's still the second time we've done it. We'll continue to always evaluate it. But to me, it's just getting as much of the work done on the front end so that on the back end, and we were lucky enough that it's a four o'clock kick which is no different than a night game for us. So it's just a matter of our guys making sure we get enough rest recovery on the front end to be able to play.”

What sticks out about UCLA’s offense

“I think they've limited exposing themselves with the negative plays. They're getting the ball out quick in the passing game. They're relying heavily on the run game and doing a really good job of blocking people up. They've made some plays on special teams. I think their fake punt was a huge deal and they got a big fourth down stop a week ago against Michigan State that kind of changed the momentum in it. But I think most of all, they're playing really loose. They're playing just as if they got nothing to lose. And to me, that makes it easy for a team when you can just go out there and play without a lot of pressure.”

On the leaders leading the locker room after consecutive losses

“They've been pretty consistent. I mean, if you look at the - that's the great thing about a young team is. As I always say, they don't know what they don't know. So each week is something new for them. We've had two weeks in a row where they put their best foot forward for three and a half quarters, three quarters and they know and understand that it's important that the finish is just as important as anything we do, and especially the end of the game, finishing. And to me, as we show them on tape, as we talk them through the things that we need to do to improve as a fourth quarter team, we still have them listening. They're still listening and the leaders are still leading. So I have no problem with the way our guys have been and responded, especially with the two tough losses, but I think they also, because we show them on Monday just really how close we are to having the things that we want to have as a program.”

On playing young players on offense

“Oh, there's no doubt. I mean, we've played our left and right tackle has played almost every snap of every game, Alan Herron and Rahtrel Perry. And to me, you know, in the past, we've had, and I've been one of those guys as I talk about being a developmental program where I would force us to play young players. Hey, he’s got to play 15 plays. He's got to play in the first half because I know that it's a point of diminishing return throughout the season. Well to win now, and when you start talking about the best is now and taking care, we got to get it to the fourth quarter. And that's where sometimes the lack of depth we have and there's a drop off between our first team guys and some of the younger players that we will have to go in and play them. But we got to have the belief that we've recruited them here, they can help us. Those ten, 15 plays that we take off of a starter will be beneficial to both the starter and the young player because now we're still bringing a guy along that we’re need at some point during this season. We're only halfway through. We've dealt with some injuries, we've dealt with some guys that haven't been available, but I like the way this team is coming along. I think this team understands what we need to do and we're all trying to do our part to keep ourselves healthy and in the best possible position to finish in the fourth quarter better.”

On Malik Washington adding 16 pounds since spring game

“Our strength coach Ryan Davis, and then our nutritionist and our sports performance team does a tremendous job. When you talk about adding 16 pounds, it's usually 16 pounds of muscle. He's been here since January. Most people know that our players, we do a great job of developing our players bigger, stronger, faster. If he's added the 16 pounds of muscle, it'll be to protect them. We're big on trying to create the armor that he needs on his body to keep him healthy and keep him protected. It's been the right kind of 16 pounds because if you look at the transformation of his body, maybe a little softer body. I think he's taking the nutrition piece to heart, and has really worked hard.”

On the players-only meeting mentioned

“We do players only meetings every Thursday. That's why when I heard that - every Thursday, I meet with my leadership group, find out anything going on in the house that we need to talk about and then they go down and have a players only meeting with the messaging of what we need to do. So when I asked them about the players-only meetings, we always have players only meetings on Thursday. So we're not there yet. If they are, it's mostly to make sure everybody's aligned on the same page of, hey, what do we need to do better? But not one of those players-only meetings that that you typically think of because we have them quite often as part of our development of our chemistry of our team.”

On Nolan Ray’s performance vs. Nebraska

“I thought we the line of scrimmage, we controlled the line of scrimmage more consistently than we have all season long. We got an explosive run for the first time I think this year, run over 20 yards [on] Nolan's touchdown. We need a lot more of that. We need that consistency, especially in the third and short situations. I think we had a third and two and the third and one that we weren't efficient on and those are the ones that we got to figure out how to get those tough yardage that we need in critical situations like that.”

On finding consistency in the run game

“Again, it's blocking people, being on the right leverage, doing a great job of running away from numbers, doing a great job of finishing our runs. And I thought our backs did a really good job of that. [DeJuan Williams] made a couple plays where they're going to be times when you have to run the ball into numbers, where if we recruit the right way, they're responsible for at least one of those guys that's unblocked. And I thought we did a couple times, make that one guy miss and then we just got to get it more consistent.”

On James Franklin being fired at Penn State

“It's part of the game. I've texted with James. It's the landscape we're in. Is it surprising? Yeah, it's surprising. They were in the semifinals I think a couple of years ago or last year, or whatever it was, but it's the landscape. That's why the best is now and not ahead, because we learned very quickly that you're only as good as the last game you played and the last game you've won. As coaches, I think we all understand that. And as I've said I'm at that point in my career where you know what, it is what it is. We're going to coach the crap out of them, if it's good enough, it's good enough. For James, obviously disappointed for him and his family, knowing him well, but has no bearing on what we got to do around here.”

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