Mike Locksley on Washington, bye week emphasis, DD Holmes, freshmen development

Everything that head coach Mike Locksley said following the bye week and ahead of Washington:

Opening statement

“Great to be back. As always, it's great to have you guys here that have tremendous amount of interest. Saturday will be our mental health awareness game against Washington, a game and cause that since I've been here has been important to me, my family and our staff and something that our players truly get behind.

On the bye week

Bye week was really productive for us. We were able to get some guys back that were injured. We spent time trying to target one area to get better for each of our players and each coach - we call it writing a prescription - wrote a prescription to our players to say, here's one thing after the first four games that if you improve at this skill, it'll help our team, it'll help us elevate and so we were able to focus on the fundamental parts of the game of our players during the bye week, as well as get guys healthy, which is really important. Get some guys back that missed the Wisconsin game.”

On Washington

“Obviously, I had a chance to watch them against Ohio State. If you watched the game, you can tell that they are a very talented team going up against the defending national champions. They did a tremendous job for four quarters. They got it to the fourth quarter. I know for us as a football program, we always talk about let's get it to the fourth quarter to give ourselves a chance. And their explosive on offense, starts with their quarterback. I think they rank fifth in Big Ten, averaging over 450, yards of offense. The final score of that Ohio State game, to me, isn’t indicative of how closely the game was played. I know they sustained a few injuries in their game, not sure which of those guys will be back, but I can tell you, I've known Jedd Fisch a long time in the business. He spent time down in Florida, grew up in the [Steve] Spurrier system, spent a bunch of time in the NFL, and you can see his handprint all over the offensive side of it. Their [defensive] coordinator, Ryan Walters, veteran [defensive] coordinator, former head coach that I had a chance to get to know as a head coach in this league. And again, being a [defensive] coordinator at Illinois the last couple of years, we had opportunities to go against his defense, very well versed and they'll be a do a great job. They play a lot of man coverage. Mix it up with their two deep zone. They try to create the one on one pass rushers and they do have great length, athleticism and talent on that side of the ball.”

On being back at home

“Being back in The Shell, super excited to defend our home field advantage. I expect it to be a good crowd with Family Weekend being this coming weekend. [I] expect to be great turnout and support for our young team as we continue to defend ourselves here in The Shell.”

On game captains

“Our game captains will be Aliou Bah, Eli Mason and Lavain Scruggs will serve as our game captains leading us into the Washington game.”

On reexamining bye week procedure given Locksley’s winless streak in games after bye

“Dustin told me that. What is our bye week record?...0-9, I [haven’t] been here nine years…we evaluate everything we do, Gene. It’s a great question Dustin literally said, you'll probably get asked that…we usually practice how we have to. I grew up in an era where the bye week is used kind of like a prize fighter. In between rounds, he sits on the stool. His eyes are looking across at his opponent. He's getting instruction from his coaches. He's getting recovery from his coaches. He's getting a little rest. But we did things a little bit differently. We actually, because of our depth, we didn't beat them up. I have a tendency during bye weeks to be really, really physical, because that's what I grew up in under the Nick Saban approach where your the young players should be real physical. We just can't afford to do that so we condensed our practice opportunity time, but we still were physical. We still had shells and thudded and did some good things, but really looked at it as an opportunity to get some guys healthy while also focusing on things we haven't done well. What I've learned about this young team is that most of the time when we’ve emphasize something to them, they've come back and done pretty well. We wanted to find what are some of the small, detailed things of the fundamentals of the game that we needed to improve upon for each player and then gear it toward that. We did a lot more individual, I think we had 30 minute individual period because of us wanting to get better with the fundamental part of the young team.”

On how Maryland has become confident since Wisconsin win

“This team, as I keep saying, I don't see them act different. That's the sign of a really young team because I know it sounds like coach speak when you say they don't know what they don't know. They really don't. Everything they're going through, they're going through for the first time, which is why the impact we can have on this team as coaches is really, really important. Last week, two weeks ago, we talked about we'll figure out and find out a little bit about ourselves after the Wisconsin game. We just keep confirming that we do have a talented team but I will continue to guard against declaring that that we've arrived or they've arrived because the last thing to come when you have youth is consistency. And that's my job, to make sure that we show up and consistently – we go two games without turnovers or offensive penalties. That's really clean. I know some of you guys don't see that as a positive, because maybe statistically offensively, we're not what we've been in the past, but I'm just really happy that we're playing really clean, not turning it over, controlling the ball, and now our defense isn't always having to play a lot of plays. All three phases are improving, I think special teams has made probably the biggest jump from week one to week four. I see our offense, we made some jumps playing clean, and the defense has really played lights out. But I will caution you that there is still a lot of things on tape to get corrected that we've watched as we self-scout ourselves and with this young team, we're gonna keep coaching it.”

On mental health, academics

“As far as the mental break, they got away from the Wisconsin game. They had Sunday off. Monday, we came in and did some work and had our meetings to put it to bed, which typically would have waited till Tuesday. We did meet on Monday, we stretched and strided them to get the kind of lactic acid out of bodies. And then Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, we had some normal type practices. We condensed the time that we were out there, but really did continue to focus on the fundamental piece of it. And then they had Friday, Saturday, Sunday, off as a recovery. But as we talked about is a lot like that prize fighter - we get the recovery, we get the instruction, we get better in between rounds, but we keep our eye on the prize. And based on how we practiced yesterday, which was a more heavier Monday than we normally have, I like the way that they've responded with that. As far as the mental part of it and the academic piece, one of the things we try to talk about is how do we limit distractions? And so this is the week - we have our academic meetings every Thursday at 11 o'clock where we go through each individual player in our program. And a lot of things are starting to catch up this time of the season where now you've got midterms coming up, you've got papers coming up. We tried to focus on making sure that extra time they had off that they got ahead of the curve with the academic piece so that we can focus and concentrate our energies on the opponent as much as you possibly can with limited late night distractions.”

On the development of the OL, key to keeping Malik Washington protected

“Good, good coaches. Hal Hunter, [Damian Wroblewski] really have done a great job with this young, inexperienced group of guys. I just was talking to Pep before I came up here, and our two tackles are playing at a high level, Rahtrel Perry and Alan Herron are both guys that are playing at a very high level for us. I think also the quarterbacks have a better understanding of how to protect the football, protect themselves. And then even though the run game hasn't been as efficient when you look at it statistically, we've run the ball enough and forced the run into some things enough that it allows us to not put them in harm's way. We’ve stayed in some third and mediums more than we've been in the third and extra long, which typically leads up to some sacks. But I think just staying ahead of the chains on first and second down, being able to run the ball, control the clock has helped with some statistics when you look at the sacks.”

On Washington RB Jonah Coleman

“Heavy-handed runner. He’s one of those guys that he's a tough tackle in terms of one guy coming. If you don't bring your feet and play and tackle him with leverage, he can make you look bad. He's one of those guys that, as I talked to Ted [Monachino] and our defensive staff, we’ve got to be really good at the gang tackle. When we are playing good defense, you see a lot of guys running to the football. With his running back, it's going to take a lot of hats to the ball because sometimes the first guy may not get him down but we’ve got to do a great job of rallying and getting a lot of bodies to the football on a good runner, a heavy-handed runner like Jonah.”

On what he recalls about Maryland’s matchup vs. Washington in 1982

“I was probably out in lot Z during my 13^th birthday this time of year.”

On facing a team with minimal familiarity

“None of that matters. Again, we watched the tape. I say this in here a lot and I know a lot of you guys don't believe it, but the opponent matters from schematics and the personnel and who they have, but all of the personal relationship - football, there is no personal in football. It's the game. It's about the ball. My wife knows Jedd’s wife. Jedd is a great dude. I got to know him from my time coaching at Florida. I know he's a New Jersey guy, I’ve seen him on the road quite a bit but always has been a guy that I've had an opportunity to get to know over the last 30 years in this business. Sharp football mind, sharp offensive mind, have been around some really good coaches, but when it comes down to what's gonna happen Saturday, it’ll be about me having my team ready to play. And for us on the defensive side of the ball, it's gonna be about limiting those explosives. On the offensive side, it's creating some explosives, a little more than what we have, consistently been able to run the ball when we have to. Special teams either score or set up a score.”

On what was emphasized during the bye week

“I think I said it earlier, the consistency. You bring up drops and two games ago, we had no drops. I did fix that that game. They pop back up a week later. So we are emphasizing it again. If you come to practice, you'll see four jugs machines. I almost bought the Monarch machine - it's a machine that you can just be out there on the field by yourself. You don't need quarterbacks to throw. I'm looking to do any and everything we can to improve. And typically, like I said, the things we’ve emphasize with this group, we will. I went back and watched every single drop we've had during to bye weekend. It's a simple fundamental called looking it in to the tuck. If you ever want to study it and you want to fix drops, see how many times the ball hits their hands and their eyes go to make a play as opposed to looking it all the way in. Those are things that can be fixed. We’ve studied it, working on it. You’ll hear me screaming eyes to the tuck. I’ve had to deal with these before. Good teams don't beat themselves and we've cut all the other self inflicted wounds out. You haven't said, hey, man, two games with no turnovers here. Old Sam comes with no drops, boy, but I'm working on those drops for you, Sam, and I'll try to get that fixed this week for sure.”

On pinpointing a reason for bye week struggles

“I didn't even know. Again. I had to ask, What's my record after bye weeks? I didn’t realize it was that bad. It was terrible, 0-9. You guys also realize that we play really good teams in the Big Ten after a bye weekend as a team that has been developing, we’ve faced some tough teams coming off of a bye, and it's no different this week. So yeah, I've looked at what we need to do differently. Some of it is not beating us up, because I'm from kind of that old school philosophy of it's like being a spring ball again. Hey, let's just get 120 plays of practice. Let's be physical. Let's let the young players tackle to the ground. And then all of a sudden, I've got a bunch of injuries that happened during the bye week that doesn't allow us. So it's a fine line. You can find stats for how I am after a Friday night game. I can't keep up with the stats. That's why I try not to think or know what they are, because when you ask, you get a real, authentic answer. We are working to find a way to win this game at home. We looked at our team, where we were. We decided what type of practices we needed to have. We focused more fundamentals than scheme this past week, gave a lot more individual time, really tried to hone in on let's get better at one thing because if you try to fix everything, you end up fixing nothing. And so we took that approach and we'll see how it works on Saturday.”

On DD Holmes

“We haven't had one of those in a while. I don’t know if you check that stat. It's been a while since we had one of those. We handle that stuff internally, Mike. Like I never want to get up here and embarrass kids and so we handled it internally, spoken to my bosses. Obviously, I don't get into personnel matters much like injuries here. We’ll let this thing run its course internally. We'll see how it works out.”

On WR Octavian Smith being a glue for the offense

“You can’t bye leadership and that's what I'm starting to see from Octavian. And not just on the football field, but a week ago, he’s our student athlete of the week, which I'm a big believer that how you are off the field usually translates to who you will be on the field. And I like Oct’s progression. He's kind of the poster child this year for what a developmental player looks like in our program. Guy that’s played every year, never redshirted. His stats continue to get better with each year. I've seen him grow leadership wise, on track to graduate, start to teach and coach the younger players. The right way of how our staff is and needs to be for us to create some consistency. So big fan of what Oct has done for us this year. We'll need a big game out of Oct this week.”

On DL Zahir Mathis, Sidney Stewart early success

“A byproduct of their abilities, which, I mean, I'm not here to say I told you so, but these two young guys are guys I've talked about. When you ask what young players before the season, and I said, I think we'd be able to rush the passer a little bit better than we have in years past, and not have to add blitzers, I think is what I said. Both these guys were guys that were heavily recruited out of high school. They're both super talented guys but probably the thing that you guys don't know, these guys have some tremendous ‘whys.’ When you sit and talk - and you've got a chance because I let freshmen talk to the media now because of the landscape - but you get a chance and a field to see the maturity level that both those young guys have. Having Sid here for spring ball was added value for us because we had a chance to really kind of see the player that we thought we were recruiting because he missed most of his senior year. But then to get Zahir here on Father's Day in June, just to see how quickly he's progressed. Ted coaches that position group, does a tremendous job in their development within our scheme. This scheme is built for those type of pass rushes, and they both have taken advantage of some opportunities, but they're still young players, man. It's always great for our program and for them to be recognized that way but we're doing everything we can to insulate them to keep it the main thing the main thing, which is the internal standards that we have. We haven't relied on external because nobody gave us a chance on the front end. So let's keep the main thing the main thing. We'll keep coaching them to play to that level with great consistency

On Ted Monachino’s impact on the defense

“I like the way Ted, Aazaar [Abdul-Rahim], Zac [Spavital] - football is the ultimate team sport. As the head coach, sometimes I get way too much credit. I had no problem with the blame. With Ted, he should get a ton of credit because he put in a system that fits what we need it to be to get the best out of our players. And the one thing I always mandate to my coaches is, put your best players in the best possible positions to be efficient and effective for us. He's done a great job of doing that with the defensive side of the ball.”

On the meaning of the freshmen class impacting the program

“It’s always good when they play the way these guys have. I've been around here, I don’t know, 17 years, so I've seen a lot of freshmen come in and play. I've seen the DJ Moore's, Stefon Diggs, Yannick Ngakoue, Shawne Merriman, Vernon Davis. These guys are in that same world and we've recruited really well. We've evaluated really well during my tenure here and we'll continue to do that. So as I said, to our team, like a lot of people don't know or didn't know the type of talent that we put together, because 64 of the guys are new. There's a lot of a lot more questions than there were answers. But I can just tell you, we are nowhere close to being what I think we can be, but I really like this team and I like their hearts.”

On adapting with freshmen in the current landscape

“NIL, name, image and likeness. If I hold them hostage and don't let them talk, people won't know if they can represent their brands and know what type of influencers they can be. And so in this day and age, I used to be more afraid that they didn't have the experience to stand in front of such a professional group of guys that are going to ask tough questions of a young guy. But in this day and age, we've done our part. Dustin, we've done a lot of programming over the summer with training young players on how to deal with this media. But this is an opportunity for me. If I were to not give them this opportunity, I'm taking away possible opportunities for them to maybe create some value for themselves in their name, image and likeness space.”

On Messiah Delhomme

“There's no doubt we thought he was a really good player or we wouldn't have recruited him there. He's a guy that missed his senior year, broke a leg and did not participate his senior year in high school but we saw enough of his junior tape. He was a guy that was recruited by everybody in the country. It was a great steal to be able to get him out of Virginia. Coach Scott, Latrell, has done a tremendous job for us down in that 757 area, bringing guys out of Richmond. If you look across our roster, we've never, in my opinion, maybe since the Bobby Ross era with the Covington boys and some of those guys that had opportunities to come from Virginia to Maryland, Coach Scott has really given us an imprint there in that Tidewater, Richmond area that we haven't had in years. And so a lot of talented players down there. We’re excited. Messiah was one of those guys that we saw a lot on junior film. Most people still recruited him coming off of the injury. We were able to hold him to a tough four-win season a year ago. And yeah, I think I've said in here, like, he's one of those freshmen that I thought could help us early, and he's doing it on special teams, but he's also made some plays on the back end, where everything - practice, he's one of those guys that was always around the ball, the ball finds him. Like the young player that he's showing to be. He’ll have a chance to be a pretty good one.”

On OC Pep Hamilton’s impact on the offense

“The first part would start with a change in how I've done things because anybody knows me, knows I'm a no huddle, up-tempo team that tries to get 80 plays a game. And if you look at what we've done, we've had maybe 57, 60 plays. We play with not as much pace. We've changed a lot of some of the verbiage because we have new players that, in an effort for them to play early, much like in the NFL when he signed a guy like Darren Waller who signed a week ago and he catches two touchdowns. Well, the only way he gets to play in the game is if you tell him what to do in your call, which is why we've huddled. Now that we have the communication, we're able, time of possession has helped our defense and probably one of those little changes that a lot of people don't recognize, but that's allowed us to be a lot fresher on the defensive side of the ball. It allows us to make sure everyone is on the same page. When we do leave a huddle, we mix our tempos in there to where we can play fast. But I think those are the types of things Pep has brought, Ted has brought, Dre has brought to special teams is a different approach that allows us to get guys to play faster and earlier and not have to memorize maybe as much as we've had to when you do the no huddle and taking signals.”

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