COLLEGE PARK, Md. — After being blown out 59-0 at home by Penn State, Maryland is looking to regain its confidence this weekend when the Terps travel to Piscataway to take on a Rutgers team that just fired head coach Chris Ash and is just as desperate for a win.
“We're excited about the opportunity to go up to Rutgers this weekend,” Maryland head coach Mike Locksley said Tuesday. “It's my job as the leader of this thing here to make sure that we get our confidence back on the offensive side of the ball and we do the things that we're capable of executing to get us back on the right track which I know we will.”
Having to right the ship is a position Maryland football knows all too well from years as an up-and-down program. Playing with an interim head coach is also familiar territory for the Terps and Locksley, who actually served in that role in College Park in 2015.
Knowing where the Scarlet Knights’ mindset is likely at right now, has Maryland expecting a dogfight from a rallying team, much like the Terps were in last year’s season opener with Matt Canada as interim coach in place of D.J. Durkin.
“It's a challenge and our players are well aware that having gone through it themselves and you saw the rally that they put together when they played Texas last year with the interim situation then,” Locksley said. “There's nothing worse than playing a team that doesn't have much to lose and I would imagine, knowing coach Ash and the type of team that he developed, that these guys will rally together to form a bond and play for each other. So we expect them to have all types of effort.”
Not only does playing a team desperate for a win present a challenge, but also competing against a program that is making drastic changes is something Locksley said can lead to some uncertainty when putting together a game plan.
“I equate this game a lot to playing the opening game where you don't necessarily know what you're going to get,” Locksley said. “You anticipate some things, I mean obviously you can't just wholesale change and go from a pro-style system to running a wishbone. At least I don't think you can within a three-day period. So, the expectation is that they'll be similar to what they are. I think they got a new play-caller on offense because they let the offensive coordinator go. And what we're going to have to do defensively is be really clean in our alignments and our assignments. And then once we get into the game the adjustment piece becomes huge for us. So we'll just have to be really good with our adjustments and see what they present to us, and then get our players playing well and doing the things that we need to do on offense, defense, and special teams.”
Part of the Terps’ preparation this week included a player-led meeting the day following the blowout loss to Penn State, a meeting that tight end Tyler Mabry said was led by linebacker Keandre Jones with the simple overall message of “don’t point fingers; do your job.”
“We had a player-led meeting on Sunday and it’s just very important to us that we bounce back,” Mabry said. “It was the first conference game but we know what we need to do and what we’re capable of doing.”
Mabry added that the idea of playing a fellow desperate team and the need to be ready for that hasn’t been lost on the players.
“They have nothing to lose because they lost their head coach. So we have to bring our A-game because they’re going to give us their best shot,” Mabry said.
The Terps will attempt to bring their best effort in Piscataway on Saturday despite several injuries to the roster, particularly on the offensive side of the ball, and even more specifically across the offensive line.
Right guard Terrance Davis missed the Penn State game after spraining his MCL against Temple; he will be out for at least a few more weeks. Locksley said Tuesday that right tackle Marcus Minor will be a game-time decision after dislocating his toe against the Nittany Lions. Starting center Johnny Jordan also exited last Saturday’s game with an injury and did not practice on Tuesday, and left tackle Jaelyn Duncan has been nicked up as well.
Maryland certainly hopes to get healthier along the offensive front as soon as possible, but the injuries have also spilled over into the running back room. It was announced after the Temple game that Jake Funk tore his ACL and will miss the remainder of the season, and Funk’s replacement on the depth chart, Lorenzo Harrison, now finds himself in the same boat, having torn his MCL and partially tearing his ACL against Penn State; he will also have season-ending surgery.
The Terps are down to starter Anthony McFarland, Javon Leake, and Tayon Fleet-Davis in the backfield. But McFarland is also dealing with a lingering injury that might have hampered his performance a bit last weekend.
“Ant wasn't 100 percent in the game Saturday, he had a high ankle sprain and he missed a lot of the bye week getting healthy with that,” Locksley said.
On the defensive side of the ball, senior cornerback Marcus Lewis is a game-time decision with a knee injury.
There’s not much Locksley can do about his injured players, but what he’s more concerned with is cleaning up the discipline of the players who are out there. Maryland had nine penalties for 85 yards against Penn State, allowed four sacks, and turned the ball over three times.
Locksley takes responsibility for his team’s lack of discipline in the last two games and is eager to show that he has corrected the problem against Rutgers on Saturday, even if that means giving other players chances to make plays.
“I've got to get that part fixed and we get it fixed by the change in players, which with some of the injuries it's a little tough to make those types of changes, but we'll keep reinforcing it, we’ll keep coaching it, we’ll keep coaching them through it,” Locksley said.
