‘Excited about the unknown’: Locksley, Maryland face pivotal season with young, untested roster

Year seven of the Mike Locksley era at Maryland begins the same way year six did: with the results of a camp-long quarterback competition hidden until the first offensive snap against Florida Atlantic Saturday afternoon.

“We’ve been down this road before. You guys all know it’s not going to happen,” Locksley said when prodded to disclose his starter. “The team knows … It’s in house.”

The keys to the Terrapins’ offense will be in the hands of at least one of three men. Justyn Martin arrives in College Park after two seasons as a backup at UCLA. Redshirt freshman Khristian Martin was the MVP of Maryland’s spring game. And highly-touted true freshman Malik Washington became a fan favorite even before he donned a Terrapins uniform.

Combined, they have five games of college football experience. Adding that inexperience to a Maryland roster returning only four starters from a dismal 2024 campaign makes this season the most pivotal in Locksley’s coaching tenure.

“Anything and everything that took place a year ago,” Locksley said “we’ve ripped off the rearview mirror and it’s moving forward only.”

Last year’s starting QB Billy Edwards transferred to Big Ten opponent Wisconsin. Also departed is starting running back Roman Hemby, who will spend this season at Indiana, another school Maryland will face in 2025. With those key pieces gone, expect heavy player rotations early in the schedule, making it hard to deduce who will be season-long starters.

“When I talk about being excited about the unknown — we have a lot of people that people haven’t scouted, didn’t scout, can’t scout,” Locksley said. “And they’re going to mess around and find out, per se, because we have recruited really well.”

After candidly acknowledging he’d lost Maryland locker room last year over name, image and likeness inequalities, the District native has been forced to adapt to survive amid the ever shifting winds of the sport.

“Those are the things as a parent I should have and needed to anticipate,” said Locksley, who just this summer has been forced to navigate both a new boss in athletic director Jim Smith and the ramifications of the House v. NCAA settlement that allows schools to directly compensate their players. “Yeah, they’re [now] pros in their respective sport, but we still have some development to do as people.”

For players now being paid like pros, pros have been brought in to coach them. Former Howard quarterback and DC Defenders coach Pep Hamilton will head the offense as Locksley’s third offensive coordinator in four seasons. He has deep ties to the region — Hamilton kept a home on Capitol Hill in his years away from the District — along with 15 years of experience developing NFL quarterbacks.

“We’re going to try and be creative in how we manage, and really mitigate, our early downs so that we don’t end up in third-and long and situations where it becomes an uphill battle for any quarterback to be successful,” Hamilton said.

The professional flavor extends to the defense, with Ted Monachino bringing his 16 years coaching NFL linebackers to College Park. The former North Carolina assistant takes defensive coordination duties over from Brian Williams, who left after six years on Locksley’s staff for the same position at Jacksonville State.

“I’m at the point in my career that it’s about helping good people win,” Monachino said. I’ve been in big stadiums. I’ve been in big moments. I believe it’s a great job if you like where you live, you like the guys you work with, and you have a chance to win. That’s what I was attracted to.”

Another adaptation? Locksley has finally ended his long-time policy of not allowing freshmen to speak to the media, a vestige of his time on Nick Saban’s staffs at Alabama.

“I think our players understand, I think we understand, as the landscape has continued to evolve, that we just have to be ready to pivot,” Locksley said.

For a team that finished 4-8 overall and 1-9 in the Big Ten in 2024 —  winning only one game after Sept. 21 — Locksley has put his faith in those pivots in the hopes that they will change the reality around his program. Despite three-straight bowl victories prior to last season, Maryland is 0-16 against ranked Big Ten teams under Locksley and still commits unforced errors by regularly losing to the league’s back benchers.

“2024 has no bearing,” he said. “We’re going to be defined in the present of what we do now … Unfortunately, I have to use that as a barometer for our team, because it’s where we were. But for us, 2024 will have zero bearing on 2025.”

Though the second season of an expanded conference schedule is more favorable to the Terrapins, November is again a gauntlet with playoff team Indiana and No. 14 Michigan on the docket, with the Wolverines serving as the only home game after Nov. 1.

“Success is equal to production being greater than or equal to our expectation,” Locksleu said, “and it’s our expectation, not yours. Those are things we keep in house. Our players know what our desires are. Our players know and understand what we have to do.”