COLLEGE PARK — Saturday was a chance for Maryland football to convince a starving fan base that this year was different.
A win, given the stakes, might have been enough for those on the fence to believe in the Terps and their coach. Quarterback Malik Washington and his crew of undaunted freshmen rolled to a 4-0 start. SECU Stadium was sold out for just the second time this decade — more than 51,000 on hand to witness what was in line to be a breakthrough victory well into the fourth quarter.
Instead, the Terps squandered that opportunity, allowing 24 unanswered points in a 24-20 defeat to Washington that showed that, in fact, little has changed for a program that keeps losing in these spots.
Maryland is 0-10 in games following bye weeks under coach Michael Locksley, who said that he struggled to prevent the large crowds and outside attention that comes with winning from infiltrating the locker room this week. The energy that permeated throughout the stadium was sucked out by a Huskies surge that felt inevitable, although Locksley disagreed with that sentiment. “We don’t really watch the scoreboard,” he said.
Locksley also begged for Saturday’s loss to not be compared with previous defeats on similar stages like these. Fairly or unfairly, it will. Because they keep happening.
“We’re defined in the present,” Locksley said. “I won’t get into, ‘This year’s team can’t be like any other team,’ because it’s this year’s team. Do I expect it? Of course. But for us, we’ll be defined by what we’re doing with this team. Looking at comparisons and history, you’d say that. We’ll be defined by what we do.”
Saturday featured a devastating combination of collapses on both sides of the ball. The visiting team scored on all four of its second-half drives. Meanwhile, Maryland’s offense ran 19 plays after going ahead by 20 midway through the third quarter. Only two of them were handoffs to running backs. In just his fifth college start, Washington finished with 49 pass attempts in a game his team led until less than four minutes left in the game.
Locksley said that some of those pass attempts were run-pass option plays, adding that Maryland “didn’t make enough good throws” and that Washington “didn’t play his best today, obviously.”
“We had opportunities,” the freshman quarterback from Spalding said. “We just gotta finish.”
Despite Locksley’s request, games like Saturday are a part of Maryland’s ethos. It will be likened to Locksley’s previous frustrating defeats even if the players are new and boast plenty of promise.
“I think we’ll just take it,” Washington said when asked how he expects the team to digest this. “Watch the tape back, get the mistakes corrected, and move onto the next week. That’s the only way to deal with it. Just come out next week even harder, knowing we have to finish games.”
It seemed as if Maryland would, for the first time, meet the moment. Its fan base is used to being let down in settings like Saturday over the years, in which the Terps appeared to be on the precipice of a breakthrough but fell embarrassingly flat. Their last sellout two years ago featured a 51-15 beatdown from Penn State.
Saturday’s stage felt eerily similar to those against the Nittany Lions in 2019, Iowa in 2021 and others over Locksley’s seven seasons. In both of those instances, Maryland was reminded that it’s nowhere near the Big Ten elite in lopsided defeats. In fact, Maryland is 0-36 against ranked Big Ten teams since joining the league.
Maryland’s last Big Ten home opener also unfolded similarly, as the Terps allowed 10 unanswered points in the fourth quarter to fall to Michigan State. Then their season spiraled, winning just one conference game the rest of the way.
Saturday’s result will surprise few.
“I’m good on the mental piece. I take care of my mentals,” Locksley said when asked if there’s a mental hurdle he must clear to win in games of this magnitude. “I think what I have to do is focus on evaluating what happened, why it happened and how I can get it fixed. To me, that’s what good coaches do. As I like to say, I’m going to be defined by how we move forward, not by the history of what we’ve done.”
Maryland’s Big Ten schedule seemed favorable coming into the year and even more so after the team’s 4-0 start. The Terps won’t see No. 1 Ohio State, No. 2 Oregon or No. 7 Penn State (now 3-2 after a shocking loss to UCLA) this season. Only two teams currently ranked are on their upcoming slate.
This group has already exceeded expectations, but those are subject to change when it appears as if they were set too low. A seven- or eight-win campaign felt within reach as of the third quarter Saturday, when Maryland led 20-0 and showed no signs of slowing down. Then Washington scored 24 unanswered points.
“This isn’t the same Maryland team that people have seen and heard about,” junior linebacker Daniel Wingate said earlier this week. “This is a new group of kids and a new team.”
This might not be the same old Maryland. But it does have the same feeling that failure is inevitable — and the same coach.
The sold-out crowd emptied some at halftime. That’s nothing new at Maryland football games. It could have made those who left regret it. Instead, those who stayed were silenced by another reminder that this team is not different.
They’ll stay on the fence.
Have a news tip? Contact Taylor Lyons at tlyons@baltsun.com, 410-332-6200 and x.com/TaylorJLyons.