With the latest news on May 26th of 4 Star Defensive Lineman Tommy Akingbesote out of C.H. Flowers committing to Maryland, the 4th 4-Star player at the position, it has not only reinforced one of the strengths of Head Coach Mike Locksley which is recruiting but it also continued the momentum of the DMV movement. This was a movement that was supposed to have transpired during the Randy Edsall days when Locksley was the Offensive Coordinator. While it started to get some steam it quickly dissipated when Edsall was fired and Locksley was not given the Head Coaching job after he had served in the interim role for the second half of the 2015 season. What is the DMV movement? That would be the retaining of in-area talent from DC, Maryland and Virginia to College Park to the play for the Terps. Maybe one of the biggest losses from the first attempt at the DMV movement was Dwayne Haskins who ended up going to Ohio State and who got drafted last year by the Washington Redskins to be their QB of the future. Much of the Class of 2021 is made up of DMV players. The hope is that the domino effect will continue and maybe even include 5-Star Gonzaga QB Caleb Williams who the Terps are battling Oklahoma and LSU with in the recruiting wars. The recruiting rankings change fairly constantly but Maryland as of June 5th was ranked #11th in the Nation and they have gone between being ranked 5 to 7th in the Big Ten. This year Big Ten recruiting might be the most competitive it has been in years with the likes of Minnesota and Nebraska in the Top 5 within the conference at least for now.
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With a strong Terps ‘Class of 2021’ after a #31 ‘2020 Class’, now comes the most important part, coaching the kids up and starting to win games. It’s always about the players and great players make good coaches. I believe that talent will always supersede the coaching but in no way does that minimize the impact of quality coaching, it still is particularly important do not get me wrong. That is where now Mike Locksley and his coaching staff must make a solid impact in developing these players once they hit campus. Recently former Ohio State Head Coach Urban Meyer (and I referenced this in my last article) said that Locksley needs to win soon. At first, I thought that that was a very surface statement and Meyer may not be as familiar with all the facts of the MD program. For instance, there is not pressure on Locksley to go out and go 8-4 or 9-3 this year or even 7-5 for that matter. Most people realize the turnaround is not going to happen overnight. Then, however I got to thinking that his point is spot on. This program in order to retain the players they have (now that the transfer portal is so popular) and continue the DMV movement will need to show the kind of progress necessary in the next two years to give fellow players and future recruits hope that the program is pulling out of the doldrums and is on its way up.
To Meyer’s point, Locksley and his staff need to coach like their jobs are on the line and that he has a short window to turn things around. The faster the winning culture gets instilled the better it’s going to be, they need to seize upon this local success because the excitement and hope of it all can be over pretty quickly if we don’t see results on the field. I do think a level of competitive play has a lot to do with it. If you are going to lose and they likely will to OSU, Wisconsin, Michigan and Penn State they need to let those teams know though on the field this is a different Maryland than in the past. Most importantly potential recruits on TV need to see that this program might be only a few players away from winning some of those games and that those recruits themselves could be the missing pieces.
It is one thing to bring in players but now comes the pressure of developing them, playing competently and competitively and starting to win some more games along the way. This also includes your coordinators calling good games in all three phases. We cannot see the incompetence we saw at times from the team especially in doing some of the most basic of things on the field. I think the coaches can now bring back some discipline after having to tread lightly the last two years because of the Jordan McNair death and all that came to light on the culture of the program during DJ Durkin’s short stint with the program. The Big Ten has many good Head Coaches and Assistant Coaching staffs from Ohio State to Wisconsin to Michigan to Iowa to Minnesota to Indiana and Penn State. Even Rutgers is back in good hands with Greg Schiano. You are going to be hard pressed to find a program that does not have a good coaching staff in this Conference. The Locksley staff still has a lot to prove and it begins this season. This is especially where the time Locksley spent at Alabama will be invaluable to competing against the best in the Big Ten. It also became invaluable with Covid-19. The staff’s task got tougher without Spring Practice so they got put to the test this offseason to see if they were able to adjust and put together a virtual plan that could still be effective enough so as not to slow down too much the development of players and the program. Time will only tell but there is not as much time as we may have thought in College Park. So, in a lot of ways the pressure is on right now.
Terps Analyst
Mike Popovec is a Weekend and Fill-In host at 105-7 The Fan. In addition Mike hosts the Pre and Post, Halftime and Scoreboard Updates for the Football Games on the Maryland Terrapins Sports Radio Network. He also hosts the Pre and Post Game Show on weekends for some of the Maryland Basketball Games. Popovec also hosts a local News, Talk and Sports Morning Program at the beach on 92-7 WGMD. He also produces and hosts High School Football Games and Shows throughout the season out of Easton covering the Eastern Shore’s Bayside Conference. He sideline reports for CW54 for the Maryland State High School Football Playoffs with Bruce Cunningham, Doug Duvall and Wally Williams.