MIKE BURKE
Allegany Communications Sports
Money doesn’t grow on trees. It grows on empty seats at SECU Stadium when they’re not empty, which makes the latest “Locksley must go!” outrage from Maryland football fans worth taking with a grain of salt.
Don’t misunderstand, those who are occupying the seats each Saturday in SECU, and those who contribute to the athletic department’s coffers, have every right to be frustrated and angry with this enormously disappointing football season at the University of Maryland. But to the rest, never forget that money doesn’t grow on trees, and if you care that much, yet do nothing about it, then you’re part of the problem.
Thus, in the wake of Saturday’s 31-17 loss to Rutgers and a season that now stands at 4-6 and 1-6 in the Big Ten, the chirping has grown louder and speculation abounds that the fanny of the sixth-year Terrapins head coach is firmly on the hot seat. But it’s not.
Don’t misunderstand, the situation most assuredly has the utmost attention of athletic director Damon Evans, because football is the largest source of revenue in the school’s athletic department, and what took place early Saturday evening at SECU was anything but a convincing sales pitch. But Michael Locksley is going nowhere, at least not for the immediate future, for many different reasons:
For beginners, the university extended his contract for the third straight year prior to the beginning of this season because Locksley has guided the Terps to three straight bowl victories and three straight seasons with at least eight wins for the first time in 20 years. Remember those?
Furthermore, Maryland continues to pay too many head coaches not to coach at Maryland. Oh, yeah. Remember them?
Multiple sports even, but it all grows from the same tree.
Next on the list – and this is a big one – Mike Locksley has one of the top 20 or 25 recruiting classes in the country coming to College Park next season (beginning in January when they enroll early), led by one of the best high school quarterbacks in the country, Malik Washington of nearby Archbishop Spalding. That’s a boat Damon Evans will be slow to rock.
Oh, and, by the way, should Locksley be locked out of his office following the season, who is Maryland going to get to come to College Park to coach the football team, Curt Cignetti? No, that’s right, he’s going to be the next West Virginia head coach.
Oh, wait! He just signed an eight-year extension at Indiana yesterday, as he has the Hoosiers sitting at 10-0 entering this week’s Big Ten clash with Ohio State.
Honestly, is it just funny or sad, or both, that there are Maryland and WVU fans out there who believe any coach in the country is going to gladly drop all they’re doing to come to College Park or to Morgantown to coach?
Why would Curt Cignetti even have considered WVU given how his late father Frank Cignetti Sr. was treated when he was ousted as the Mountaineers head coach while he was undergoing cancer treatments? You don’t think the Cignetti family still remembers that? Bobby Bowden was handed nice parting gifts as well when he was run out of Morgantown.
Face it, it’s coaches such as Neal Brown, who despite Saturday’s 49-35 loss to Baylor, has WVU a win away from another bowl game and with a winning record in the Big 12, and Mike Locksley who want to be and who are going to be the head coaches at West Virginia and Maryland.
That still doesn’t make the sorry performance by the Terps on Saturday excusable.
Rutgers is a well-coached football team, nothing more, but that spelled the two-touchdown difference on Saturday. No way Maryland should lose to Rutgers at home by two touchdowns. In fact, make this the third loss at home, following Michigan State and Northwestern, that the Terps should have won, not because of plays or officiating that went against them, but because Maryland was not prepared to play and defeat any of them.
For instance, Maryland is 0-9 following bye weeks in the Locksley era. What is being done through the course of those two weeks?
Changes and upgrades need to be made, beginning with the coaching staff. Maryland has to find the money to pay an offensive coordinator and a defensive coordinator, both of whom are experienced in the college and pro games, such as offensive coordinator Charlie Taafe and defensive coordinator Gary Blackney were when they joined Ralph Friedgen’s staff in 2001.
The game management is a joke at Maryland as the head coach is too busy calling plays (which should never be the case at this level) and the same “correctable mistakes” continue to be made week after week. The Terps haven’t played a complete game all season and largely have found ways to lose rather than ways to win, and that’s not on the players.
Yes, Maryland is a young team, particularly up front offensively and in the secondary, but they’re no longer inexperienced as Saturday’s home finale against Iowa will be the 11th game.
It’s time for some answers. Teams reflect their coaching staffs and Maryland is undisciplined and well below par on Xs and Os. Maryland has to find a way to spend the same level of its peers to be a respectable Big Ten program.
It’s true that Friedgen benefited greatly from all that Ron Vanderlinden instilled, beginning with talent, during his four years as head coach. Locksley, though, did not have that benefit when he took over as the head coach. The program was dormant following the catastrophic, and tragic, D.J. Durkin era in College Park, and Locksley has taken it to three straight bowl victories.
Yes, this season has been a huge disappointment, so the key is to prevent it from becoming a setback. The highly popular Locksley isn’t on the hot seat, but he is under scrutiny.
It’s been six years and fair or unfair, results are results because this is a results business.
Even when there is no money tree.
Mike Burke writes about sports and other stuff for Allegany Communications. He began covering sports for the Prince George’s Sentinel in 1981 and joined the Cumberland Times-News sports staff in 1984, serving as sports editor for over 30 years. Contact him at [email protected]. Follow him on X @MikeBurkeMDT