MIKE BURKE
Allegany Communications Sports
The good news is Maryland doesn’t play this weekend. The bad news is, under head coach Mike Locksley, the Terps are 0-10 following bye weeks, including the first of three consecutive gut-punch losses to Washington three weeks ago.
The really bad news is Maryland’s Homecoming opponent next weekend is Indiana, the No. 2 team in the country. As my friend Rich asked former Maryland athletic director Damon Evans at Homecoming a few years ago when the day’s opponent was Michigan, “Who the (heck) schedules Michigan for Homecoming?”
To which Evans and his associate athletic director at the time pointed simultaneously to each other.
What started out as a season of such promise after a 4-0 start has skidded into a season of uncertainty following last week’s 20-17 loss at UCLA, the Terps’ third straight loss in which they had the lead in the fourth quarter, making Maryland 10 points from being 7-0.
An injury-ravaged defense played tough, though short-handed, for most of the game before, once again, fatigue and familiar missed tackles became the story on UCLA’s final game-winning drive.
The offense couldn’t sustain much of anything and was forced to punt eight times, turning the ball over twice and twice having to settle for three points after first and goal inside the 5-yard line.
Finally Maryland came up with a 75-yard drive to tie the game at the two-minute timeout, but in the end, the song remained the same for the Terps when the defense ran out of gas.
Though the Terps have lost three Big Ten games by a combined 10 points, they have been outscored 43-7 in the fourth quarter during those games.
Naturally, Maryland fans are taking this as they take everything – poorly, calling for head coach Mike Locksley’s head on a platter.
First of all, Maryland has never been a school to fire a coach in the middle of the season. The gated-community powerhouse schools can do that, but Maryland football is in the garden apartment district, which is something Maryland fans on the internet won’t allow themselves to admit.
Maryland fans are also too whatever to remember that Locksley was essentially the only person willing to take the Maryland job during the program’s darkest hour following the death of lineman Jordan McNair at a team workout the previous season and had to completely rebuild the program with far fewer resources than most of the Big Ten’s coaches. He left Alabama as the offensive coordinator to return to Maryland despite Nick Saban telling him not to.
Maryland fans also seem to forget that there has been only one coach in school history to lead the Terps to three straight bowl victories, and that coach is Mike Locksley.
On top of everything else, this is simply not a good year for Maryland to be firing a coach and having to be in the market for another one, as high-profile jobs such as Penn State and Florida are available, not to mention Oklahoma State, Arkansas, UCLA, Stanford and Virginia Tech.
The truth is, money wins all in college football, so, Maryland fans, James Franklin is not walking through that door. Don’t forget, not many were upset to see him walk out of the door after Chairman Yow had made him Maryland’s head coach in waiting.
According to Inside Maryland Sports, Maryland had about $3.5 million to spend on NIL last year, while most Big Ten programs had anywhere between two and six times that amount. And the department’s total revenue in 2024 ($107,526,374) ranked 43rd nationally, ahead of only UCLA in the Big Ten (as a private school, Northwestern doesn’t report its financials).
Maryland will have more finances to work with next year after its loan from the Big Ten is paid back and the school will receive its first full conference share since becoming a member, even though it will still be a smaller number than what the blue bloods of the conference will receive.
And all of the impressive young talent that is on the field right now, but has yet to play a complete game, not to mention the impressive array of recruits who have committed to Maryland for next year? They’re not likely to stick around if Locksley is fired.
Frankly, it would be unfair to fire Locksley, not that that has ever prevented any college coach from being fired, though coupled with last year’s 4-8 season that was triggered in part by the Terps lack of NIL money, this three-game skid of lost fourth-quarter leads and lost games is incredibly frustrating.
Maryland fans have a right to be upset, but Maryland fans are rarely realistic enough to admit that neither Bear Bryant nor Jim Tatum is coming back to College Park either.
Beginning with SECU Stadium and with consistently poor attendance, Maryland is a job that good coaches take because they have a connection with and an affection for Maryland. Witness alum Ralph Friedgen, who was run off after taking the Terps to seven bowls in 10 seasons. Witness fan since childhood Mike Locksley, the only coach in school history to win three bowl games in a row.
Many college football observers see the impressive young talent and the close, competitive games against good Big Ten teams as Maryland moving in the right direction.
You get the feeling new athletic director Jim Smith does as well.
The Terps have beaten the spread in all three losses, and you don’t fire a coach for losing to teams your team was favored to lose to.
So put the phone down and cool your jets. Locks ain’t going anywhere, nor should he. Not this year.
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