Maryland coach Mike Locksley had an admission to make at Big Ten media day on Tuesday.
Locksley told reporters in his opening statement that he “lost my locker room” during a 4-8 campaign in 2024. Though he didn’t specifically mention players’ NIL deals as a reason why the locker room was fractured, Locksley said that he had a group of players who were haves and have-nots.
“When you think about our team, here’s what I’ll tell you. This for me is a kind of year of what I like to call vulnerability,” Locksley said. “One of the greatest characteristics you can have as a leader is the ability to be vulnerable.
“I’ll tell you, a year ago Coach Locks lost his locker room. For me to stand in front of a group of media and tell you that I lost my locker rom, and it wasn’t because I wasn’t a good coach, it wasn’t because they weren’t good players because we were better than a four-win team. What we had to do was we had haves and have-nots for the first time in our locker room and the landscape of college football taught me a valuable lesson.
“That valuable lesson is it’s important for me, even in the midst of this change, to continue to educate our players on the importance of what playing for something bigger than yourself is all about, and I can tell you that if I’ve got to put my desk in the locker room this year, I will.”
The 2024 season was just the second full losing season in Locksley’s tenure with the team. Maryland went 3-9 in his first season in 2019 and had won 23 games over the previous three seasons and capped each of those with a bowl win.
There was no bowl game a season ago thanks to that losing record. Maryland’s only conference win of the season came in a thriller against USC in October before the Terrapins ended the season on a five-game losing streak. Seven of Maryland’s eight losses came by double digits too.
The Terps entered the 2024 season with Billy Edwards as the team’s starting QB following the departure of Taulia Tagovailoa. Tua’s younger brother asked the NCAA for a waiver to play a sixth season in 2024 but was denied thanks to a fifth game he played as a freshman in Alabama in 2019.
Edwards played in 11 games a season ago and transferred to Wisconsin in the offseason. True freshman Malik Washington could end up being the team’s 2025 starter. He was a four-star recruit in the class of 2025 as the No. 3 dual-threat QB in the country and signed with Maryland in December of 2024.
“But I can tell you, last year was tough on me as a coach because for the first time those really strong relationships were questioned because I had to decide whether to pay a freshman coming in or take care of a veteran player that helped me go to three bowl games and have success and do something that hadn’t been done in 130 years in the history of Maryland football.
“It was hard to do both, and so what I’ve decided now is if you come to Maryland and you look outside of our locker room, there’s a sign. That sign reads ‘You can leave your Louis [Vuitton] belts, your car keys and your financial statements outside of this locker room’ because when you enter those doors, we’ll all pay the same price for success or failure.”
