Locksley Looking to Fix "Correctable Mistakes"
Maryland fell flat in their first game back to Big Ten play as Northwester head coach Pat Fitzgerald notched his 100th career win with the Wildcats on Saturday. Maryland head coach Mike Locksley spoke with reporters on Tuesday as he added “Saturday was not anything we expected” as the Terps go back to the drawing board after a humbling, complete defeat.
“We can clearly play better and we will, there's no doubt in my mind,” Locksley added. “It's easy to maybe make a snap adjustment after one game. I think the biggest disappointment for us is that we didn't play up to our standard that we had and we practiced, to me, that's the disappointing piece. There were some things coming out of that game that were a concern to us, the turnovers, obviously throwing three picks, a fumble, the penalties, those are all the things that are a concern to me. On defense, our inability to get off the field on third down as well as not being very sound in our gap control. Those are things that are concerning, but they're also things that are very, very correctable.”
While correctable, the Terps’ woes nearly mirrored the same problems faced in 2019 as Maryland now prepares for a tight turnaround to prepare to host Minnesota on Friday night for a 7:30 PM kickoff. Maryland also played 20 players, including ten new freshman, in their first bit of action on the college level last week as Locksley attempts to draw positives from a 43-3 loss.
“The things that i was excited about, when I talk about the tape doesn't always show the big picture of everything. I thought our pass protection, which has been an Achilles heel for us around here, was much improved. We had a lot of young players make a lot of contributions, when you look at the running backs, [Isaiah] Jacobs and Peny Boone, Tarheeb Still started the game at corner for us and I thought he played at a really high level.”
