With Maryland a seven touchdown favorite over Howard and coming off of a huge victory over border rival West Virginia in the opener, it would be easy to see how the Terps could lose focus this week or simply overlook their FCS opponent.
But as is the case every week, the Terps aren’t focused on their opponent as much as they are playing to the best of their ability, which in turn should lead to the desired results.
“As I talk to our team this week after a big win against a border rival and now bringing in a local opponent like Howard University, the goal for us is to not play the team, but to play to the standard,” head coach Mike Locksley said at his weekly press conference. “And that’s been our talk with our team throughout the course of this summer. We set standards and we play to standards, we don’t play the opponent.”
Starting cornerback Tarheeb Still certainly played to the standard versus West Virginia, recording a team-high seven tackles including a sack in the season-opening win. He gave a player’s perspective of just what it means to ‘play to the standard.’
“It’s just knowing how good that we can be and knowing how good we can be going forward,” said Still. “So we’ve just got to keep playing to that standard, so to say. We can’t really play to the opponent we’re playing, because we can’t play down to anyone. And then we know how good we can be, so if we can just keep that going week in and week out and stay disciplined, then who knows how good of a team we can be altogether.”
Another Terp who certainly seemed to play up to that standard in the opener was starting quarterback Taulia Tagovailoa, who threw for 332 yards and three touchdowns with no interceptions in the win over the Mountaineers.
Consistency and maintaining that standard was difficult at times for Tagovailoa in 2020. Cutting out social media and improving sleep habits are among the adjustments he’s made in order to play at his best every week.
Still, Tagovailoa knows he has areas in which he still needs to improve in order to play to the standard he has set for himself.
“From Week 1 to Week 2, I made some mistakes in the first game,” said Tagovailoa. “Some runs I should have checked. I should have never taken that sack in the red zone, that was like a 15-yard loss. I made it a harder field goal for Petrino. Some reads, sometimes I’d get off my read progression too quick. And staying in the pocket. Just a lot of things I’ve got to work on, continue to work on, two hands on the ball every time I’m in there scrambling and stuff like that. But coach always tells us that a good team gets better from Week 1 to Week 2, so we’ve got to continue to stay disciplined and work hard and can’t take any day for granted.”
Since taking over as head coach in 2019, Locksley has consistently maintained that the Terps’ most important game every week is their next game. Now the Terps hope to take that a step further this season by playing to the best of their ability each and every time they take to the field.
“For us, and I know this sounds so cliche and I know you all get tired of hearing it, but really, the goal for us is to not necessarily worry about who we play, but to practice and to hold up to the type of standards that we set during the week,” said Locksley. “And I think that’s how you guard against playing the roller coaster of big game versus this game as being a little game. They’re all big because we only get 12 opportunities guaranteed. And I just think what we’ve sold our players on and really believe in as a program is that we play to a standard and we set the standard. I think we showed last week what we’re capable of doing in a small part with still a lot of room to grow. And now the goal is, can we sustain it, do it with consistency and approach every game the same way. That way, you don’t get caught up in big games and little games."
