Unit prescription cards hope to serve as "reset" for Maryland football after second bye week

Ahmed Ghafir
19 hours ago
3 min read

After emphasizing individual ‘prescription cards’ during the first bye week of the 2025 season, the second bye week gave Maryland football a chance to “hit the reset button” with each unit receiving updated prescription cards.

Maryland football amended that approach with each unit analyzing how it can improve over the final five games of the regular season, starting with Saturday against second-ranked Indiana.

“This bye week, we worked on our unit prescriptions as to things we as a unit need to improve upon and get corrected,” head coach Mike Locksley said during his weekly press conference. “It allowed us to really turn our focus on to those individual things as a unit, but also allowed us to focus and see what we're doing well and what we need to improve upon which bye weeks tend to allow you to do.”

Maryland enters November leading the country in turnover margin (+11) with just five giveaways this season, but redzone offense was a focus during the bye week after posting three touchdowns and scoring 40 points on nine redzone trips in October.

“Continuing to play clean, taking care of the football and then redzone efficiencies like just talk about that,” QB Malik Washington added. “Some of that falls on the QB, being able to have that touchdown, checkdown mentality in the redzone and not forcing any errant throws or anything like that.”

“We just kind of want to be able to be better in situations [as] far as third down, being able to continue to push chains, redzone, being able to score,” tight end Dorian Fleming said.

Defensively, the front seven's resurgence has propelled them among the nation's best as Maryland ranks ninth nationally in sacks per game (3.14), but third down defense is a focus after allowing the last three opponents to convert over 43% of their attempts. That includes the defense battling depth in the closing minutes of the narrow UCLA loss with ILB Daniel Wingate, safety Jalen Huskey and CB Dontay Joyner all suffering injuries in what Locksley called a “chess match of health.”

“If you look at where our issues have lie, they typically lie in our lack of depth and when we need it most. Because when you lose six starters in that last drive against UCLA and replace them with freshmen, a lot of the meat of guys that have played plays around here aren't in our program,” Locksley said.

But for the defensive line, improving third down efficiency is a focus after already proving the multiple young pieces available at DC Ted Monachino’s disposal to disrupt Indiana’s pocket.

“We just need to do a better job of getting off the field on third down. I think we do a good job of putting a quarterback in uncomfortable positions, creating pressure, getting in their face. So we just need to continue to do that.”

Maryland will look to do that against a familiar face when RB Roman Hemby heads to College Park for the first time since transferring, but Saturday will be about whether the front seven can disrupt Indiana QB Fernando Mendoza, a potential first round pick next April as he leads the Big Ten in passing touchdowns (15) and ranks second in completion percentage (73.2%) with just three interceptions in five conference games.

“The quarterback is as advertised,” Locksley said of Mendoza. “He's one of those guys that throws it very accurately. He's efficient. As he goes, they go.”

Kickoff is set for 3:30 PM on CBS, marking Maryland’s first game on CBS since beating Virginia in 1986.

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