Revealed: All the things Maryland HC Mike Locksley Said Regarding Michigan Football

admin | November 14, 2023 | Uncategorized | No Comments

The Maryland coach discussed getting ready for Michigan, the impact a victory would have on the team, and of course, sign stealing.

This Saturday, Michigan will travel to College Park to play Maryland. Fox has the Wolverines scheduled to play at noon.

In their all-time meeting with Maryland, Michigan is 10-1, and the Wolverines have won the last two meetings. The previous season, Michigan defeated the Terps 34–27 in Ann Arbor.

Maryland won its first five games of the season, getting off to a great start. However, the Terrapins dropped their next four games, including matches against Northwestern and Illinois, before triumphing over Nebraska last weekend.

Michigan was a topic of discussion for head coach Mike Locksley during his press conference on Tuesday. He discussed the allegations of sign-stealing at Michigan, how his team is getting ready for the Wolverines, and a lot more.

Here is what Locksley stated on Tuesday regarding the Wolverines.

Regarding getting ready to play Michigan:

Obviously, this is a tremendous opportunity for our program. A top-five team coming in here, reigning champion of the Big Ten. Extremely talented team. The last two days, I had an opportunity to watch all three phases and they’re one of those teams that it isn’t one player, that kind of, the marquee guy. They’ve got a bunch of really good players that seem to play well together and that’s what jumps out on the tape. I got a lot of respect for them. Obviously, they’re going through some of their own issues, and for 18-to-22-year-olds to be able to kind of compartmentalize and stay focused on the task at hand, which they were able to do last week up in State College which is a tough place to play and win shows the type of team that they’ve developed over there. We need to go into this game with confidence. Any time you win, it helps your confidence. I think our team is excited about this opportunity. I mean very few times in your career do you get to have what I call a breakthrough type of game and you know, what a breakthrough this would be for our program. For us to put it all together this week. Show up Saturday and execute and play a damn near-perfect game. Our players don’t have to play above their ability to win this game. We just have to play to our ability and I feel confident that we’ll get our guys prepared to do that come Saturday.

How to tune out outside noise and concentrate on Michigan:

The 18 to 22 year olds will do what they do. Their world is the information age. However, as we’ve discovered here, none of that is relevant to us. What’s happening in Michigan is none of our concern. It is imperative that we give our full attention to the tasks at hand and the things we can control. And by the way, our standard is to, once more, worry about the Terps and ensure that we send the best Terps onto the field, carrying out the necessary tasks. We have nothing to do with what is happening in Ann Arbor.

On the senior’s last home game:

It’s always the emotional, the last home game, last opportunity for a bunch of guys that have been through a lot during their time here. And again, as I told them, what a great opportunity to end your career here in the shale against reigning champion, Big Ten champion, top-five team, top-four team. What a great, great opportunity and a great story to tell your kids down the road as we can put it all together. There’s no doubt that this group is deserving of this opportunity. I’m excited to see them go out and play to their ability this Saturday.

Regarding getting ready for Michigan’s defense:

One of those players in our league who flashes when you put on the tape is Kris Jenkins Jr., a future star. The Johnson kid is in a good position. Two very good linebackers and some really talented players. However, this team plays incredibly well together when you look at it all together. Like they don’t really stand out in one particular way. They really are a well-oiled machine, particularly when it comes to ball defense. They have very good sound. Since they don’t make many mistakes, you will need to perform at an extremely high standard. And in my opinion, the poor execution has been kind of our weak point, particularly during stressful times. Therefore, we haven’t yet experienced a game in which I felt like we seamlessly integrated all three phases and played a flawless game. What better chance to achieve that than to do so at home against a Michigan team?

On if Maryland changed signals before playing Michigan and how difficult it is to learn new signals:

Once we heard that two, three weeks ago, we made a lot of the necessary adjustments because if one has them, as you read and hear, anybody can have them and so we’ve taken necessary precautions to just make sure that again, what we can control. On offense, defense, we’ve definitely mixed up our communications and how we’re able to do it and so we don’t feel like that will have any effect on our game.

It is what it is and playing Michigan is a difficult process, but it’s on the schedule and we play them. So we do the work whatever’s necessary to give us a chance to compete. So we got it done.

On Michigan running the ball 32 consecutive times against Penn State:

Every game when your game plan, you’ve got to decide what you need to do to win the game and obviously that’s what they felt they had to do a week ago to win. How are they going to attack us? We need to figure that out. I know that they have the ability to attack you in a number of ways. They’ve got a Heisman Trophy candidate at quarterback, really talented skill. They’ve got a reigning two-time Joe Moore [offensive] line, offensive line two straight years so really talented. And so to have the ability to do both really well, that’s kind of what we’ve worked towards to try to get our offense to be like, but we got to be prepared for the run. We got to be able to stop the pass. We don’t know how they’re going to attack us but we’ll find out Saturday at noon and we got to be prepared to make the necessary adjustments and do the things we can to kind of make them one-dimensional.

Regarding the effect that victory over Michigan would have:

What happens on Saturday is unrelated to the past. We all need to understand that Saturday’s game is unrelated to the previous four. Every game is a unique creation. We have one game left in the season against a very good team, but at the end of the year, you can kind of look back and discuss the season as a whole. We are aware of their talent, but we also possess talent, I assure you. We don’t always play well, and it’s my responsibility to help us improve, become smarter players, increase our efficiency, and perform at a higher level. which we are going to work on.This week has been going well, and guess what? On Saturday, we’ll see how things work out.and what’s this? On Saturday, we’ll see how things work out.