Following their second consecutive 4-8 (1-8 Big Ten Conference) season, Maryland’s football team begins their most important offseason of the Mike Locksley era. It’s not typical for coaches to earn an eighth year at the helm after two straight losing seasons, but athletic director Jim Smith offered a public vote of confidence for Locksley in November and confirmed he’d be back for the 2026 season. It’ll almost certainly be a make-or-break season for him, as his contract is set to expire after the 2028 season and his buyout decreases from $13.4 million to approximately $7 million.
Smith’s vote of confidence came with a pledge to increase funding for the program, which despite decent efforts over the course of the last few years is still one of the worst-funded among power conference teams. Former athletic director Damon Evans’ lack of urgency when the Name-Image-Likeness (NIL) floodgates opened in 2021 left the athletic department with a significant amount of catch-up work to do, something that Smith is still dealing with. The situation isn’t too dissimilar from Indiana’s, as athletic director Scott Dolson worked hard to increase funding for their football program in the years leading up to Curt Cignetti’s arrival.
Locksley and his coaching staff completed the first part of their offseason last week, when they signed 17 players as part of their 2026 recruiting class. He’s never had a class this small as Maryland’s head coach, which speaks to the youth that currently exists on the team. 5-star EDGE Zion Elee headlines the incoming group, and represents the program’s best recruit in the rankings era. As a whole they added six of the Top 25 recruits from the state of Maryland, and four of their five best additions hail from the Old Line State. Keeping Elee away from deep-pocketed suitors such as Oregon and South Carolina speaks to the boosters’ desire to increase funding. According to 247Sports, the class ranked #43 nationally and #11 in the conference.
Three important parts of the offseason still remain: player retention, coaching staff decisions, and the transfer portal. With so much young talent currently on the roster, Maryland will be a prime target to be picked clean by programs with more money. Players like Malik Washington, Zahir Mathis, Daniel Wingate, and Sidney Stewart will almost certainly be offered significant sums to play elsewhere next year. Retaining all or most of these players is crucial for Locksley, but likely comes down to the boosters’ willingness to keep them in College Park.
Maryland’s coaching staff saw significant turnover before last season, with Locksley replacing all three coordinators and a handful of position coaches. With such a young team, it can likely be expected that most of these coaches return in 2026. One coach who wasn’t replaced after last year was Kevin Sumlin, who’d served as the team’s associate head coach, co-offensive coordinator, and tight ends coach from 2023-24. Locksley could elect to add an experienced coach to the staff to fill that void.
The NCAA made some changes to the transfer portal before this season, most notably being that there’s just one window for player movement which opens on January 2nd and closes on January 16th. To date, Maryland has had just two players announce that they’ll enter the portal (WR Jahmari Powell-Wonson and DB Shamar McIntosh) but things should begin to ramp up over the course of the next few weeks. With just seven players being without eligibility for next season, Locksley and his coaching staff can be selective with which positions they target. Three of those players without eligibility are wide receivers (Jalil Farooq, Shaleak Knotts, and Octavian Smith Jr.) so you can expect replacing them to be a priority. The offensive and defensive lines are always prime spots to add transfers, considering how important experience is at those positions. And assuming that they’re able to keep Washington, it can be reasonably expected that a number of the quarterbacks on the roster elect to transfer. Adding to the quarterback room in the portal will be important, especially considering that they added just one in this season’s recruiting class (Nathan Bernhard).
Be sure to keep an eye on our message board, as that’s where I’ll be keeping track of every move that’s made during this crucial offseason for the program.
Terps Analyst
Zack is a financial analyst for a defense contractor in Washington, DC. The Owings Mills native focuses most of his efforts on Maryland Football recruiting and individual coach and player pieces; but also covers Terps Basketball. He has established relationships with Big Ten beat reporters across the conference, which he utilizes in his game previews. Now a Sr. Terps Analyst for BSL, Zack can be reached at: zack.kiesel@baltimoresportsandlife.com.