Mike Locksley reviews what went right in Maryland football's 27-10 road win vs. Wisconsin

Ahmed Ghafir
Sep 20
5 min read

Everything head coach Mike Locksley said after Maryland football’s 27-10 road win vs. Wisconsin:

On the blocked FG and punt in the first quarter

“The special teams the last three weeks have come up big for us. When you add Andre Powell and Chili Davis to your coaching staff, we're talking about the elevation of all parts of our program. Both those guys spend all their time focused on how do we affect the game on special teams? And the last three weeks, we've been able to do that. We had the blocked field goal, which early in the game really gave us energized us, created some momentum for us to block punt. [Messiah Delhomme], as I've said, freshman safety, just always - this kid finds a way to get near the ball, and he's made a bunch of plays. You got to get credit to Dre and Chili and that special teams group and how they prepare our guys before the games to win the vertical field position, score, or set up a score which is our goal.”

On the young pass rushers

“Both those guys, [Zahir Mathis] and [Sidney Stewart], I’ve talked about them a lot and they have shown consistency. Like most true freshmen, typically, you don't see it this early. I've seen it when you've had some special players. And both 9 and 29 are really special players. We’ll clean up the late hits on the quarterback. A lot of this is - I hate the growing pains that come along with it - but what you don't want to do is take away the aggressiveness and how those two young guys have played for us. They've had tremendous impact in our ability to play coverage behind it where they win one-on-one battles. We're going to need to continue to have it. We have to continue to see their growth and development through the Big Ten season. But what a hell of a start for both those young guys.”

On QB Malik Washington’s connection with WR Shaleak Knotts

“The receivers have been, especially the veteran guys, I know Malik has a lot of confidence in Punch. I know he has a lot of confidence in [Octavian Smith]. He has a lot of confidence and in [Jalil] Farooq and all those guys. But to see those two in particular, how much they've grown. And as I've said, we've talked about Punch so much and special, special year that he started off with and really, really happy. Today wasn't our best day as a receiver unit because we had those untimely drops on third down, which are like turnovers for us. We're fortunate to get out of here and be able to learn from them, but typically those have been concentration penalties or concentration drops. [We] cleaned it up a week ago. We gotta get back to the drawing board and have those guys make the consistent plays that they need to make to help our young quarterback in this conference early.”

On the impact of the road win to open Big Ten play

“We’re defined in the present meaning we'll be defined by what we've done today. Last year has no bearing on anything we have going on with this team. This is a completely different team. 64 new players. First time 64 guys went on the road together. Tremendous collaboration. Our staff, Annie [Peppard] and our operations staff did a great job of getting us here on time and going through our protocol to make it as routine as possible. The coaching staff did a tremendous job. All of our medical staff, a bunch of people. When you take your show on the road in the Big Ten for the first time with a lot of new people, they allowed us to have the comfort of knowing kind of where we are and what we're doing. So a really collaborative effort. Really proud of everyone for how they've started the year off. We still got so much room to grow and looking forward to being able to grow doing this bye week.”

How Wisconsin’s QB injuries impact Maryland’s gameplan

“It didn’t. We've had no idea who quarterback would be. We saw early that Billy was going to be available. I had no idea what happened, but we knew the things we need to do on defense, which was eliminate the explosive runs. I think the last time we were here to rush for like 300 yards almost. Today, 61 yards. We needed to minimize the explosive runs to make them play left-handed, which is throw the football. And as I've said, I really like the way we've covered people down the field, which allows our pass rushers to win one-on-one battle. So really good game plan, Ted Monachino, the defensive staff ,coach Aazaar, did a really good job of illuminating explosive runs, which we had to do today.”

On confidence level heading into the game

“I felt like we came into the game really confident. We talked about how making the investment all we could all we could ever ask for is our best. And I told our players very early in the week that it wouldn't take your work efforts to win a game like this. It just takes every individual in our program giving their best, investing their best for one week. I saw a bunch of guys really put the time and work in Monday through Friday, the mental preparation. I saw a bunch of people, including our staff, do their jobs of making it an easy transition of going on the road. And we played really well early, but still, there's so much room to grow. And there's some things as a coach that I’d like to see us finish a little bit better with not giving up the big touchdown with our young players when they're in there. I’d like to see us finish drives with touchdowns in the red area. I’d like to see us be a little bit better on third down on offense. These are the things that as a coach, when you win and can fix these things, it just makes it so much better. And I think you will continue to see that our young players because they don't know what they don't know, that we’ll achieve what we emphasize and we'll keep emphasizing to get better a little bit every week.”

On Maryland’s improved physicality in the Big Ten opener

“I saw us take a step forward. By no means are we gonna have yet. Don't have the depth that we need to have to sustain in the Big Ten this way so we got to continue to do things and be smart with how we prepare without the depth that it will take. But really like the way our offensive line played today with the low pad level, running off the ball. We're starting to take some steps in the right direction but by no means are we the finished product. I don't think we will do soon. Be interested to see how we manage having a little bit of success on the road this bye week. Get some things cleaned up, get back home and start prepping for Washington.”

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