Mike Locksley on Zahir Mathis, Maryland football RBs and TEs, WR room

Aug 19

3 min read

With Maryland football at the midway point of fall camp and the Big Ten Network in College Park for Wednesday's practice, head coach Mike Locksley broke down where he team stands just 17 days away from kickoff.

On Zahir Mathis season-ending injury

“Injuries as we know are going to be part of the game. Hate to see it happen for Zahir. Injury was a non-contact injury, so not that that makes it any better. As we've said before, with these types of injuries, we're going to have the next man up. The silver lining is it's a position where we had some depth. You have a guy like DD Holmes, who played quite a bit of football for us a year ago, Nahsir Taylor, and obviously the addition of Zion Elee makes it a little comforting to know that that's one of the positions that if we did lose a guy, is one that we have some talent and some experience behind.”

Whether Zahir’s absence leads to changes for DC Ted Monachino

“The depth chart changes around. Obviously, it was a valuable piece that we were counting on, but now somebody else has to step up, become and create value for us, but not a lot of shifting needs to be done.”

What has stuck out from fall camp

“The maturity that they've shown. When you have training camp and we put them in The Hotel together, you can tell a little bit about a team by how we have to discipline and manage them. And [I] always say the first mark of leadership is a man who can lead himself, and they've done a really good job of managing the time. It's a new kind of camp for all of us in terms of how we've decided to ramp them up and build them up leading into our first game and so I think they've handled that part of it well. They've really done a good job on the recovery aspect and continuing to move the thing forward.”

On this year’s WR room to previous years

“Talented group. I mean, I thought last year's group had talent, didn't produce maybe the way we would have liked or expected. This group thus far has been really pleased with – I've been pleased with the connection that they've had with the quarterback. All of the quarterbacks, including the two new guys have done a really good job of picking up the system, but with this receiving corp, it's not just one guy that's the dominant player. We have a bunch of guys that have made some plays throughout time.”

Whether a position group has stuck out

“I would say the tight end room and the running back room, and running back room where we don't have a lot of depth. We get injuries at that position, but I've been happy the way DeJuan Williams, [Iverson Howard] has come along, and even Harry [Dalton]. All three of those guys together have really given me some hope that the running game, which we made an emphasis on, will show up the way we need it to show up.”

Whether there is a feature RB this season

“In our system, we've always had multiple guys. Obviously, if one is running hot, you let them run hot and use the others to complement. But I think in college football nowadays, having two guys that can definitely carry the load. We're fortunate because I think we have three that all can be the starter. There's no doubt that they've really improved over the course of the last six months and I'm excited to see what they do.”

On preparing for the academic side of college football

“We've been really fortunate that a lot of these young guys were on campus early. We’re able to graduate high school and be here throughout the spring. You think of the guys like Damon Hall and some of those other guys that had transferred in and have a spring under their belt. I think we brought in nine guys in June that weren't able to get here early, but the acclamation for them has started already. We have an orientation period where we kind of educate them and then we always rehearse everything. So they'll have a couple days where they walk to class, learn where those classes are, and get themselves acclimated, picking up their books, and then getting themselves set up to be able to have a really strong academic life."

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