The Terps suffered their first loss, but still have half of the season in front of them.
Maryland football head coach Mike Locksley knows that the Terps failed to take advantage of an enormous opportunity last week against Ohio State. An early lead slowly evaporated into an eventual 20-point defeat, and the mistakes made were forefront on the coach’s mind, even days after the game.
Locksley and the coaching staff had a roundtable discussion the Sunday after the contest. The question asked: If there was one thing you could’ve done different, what would it be?
One of Locksley’s regrets was not giving his kicker a chance to extend Maryland’s lead in the first quarter. He had continued to reflect on it in the wake of the Terps’ defeat.
It’s letting those thoughts linger that has hurt the Terps during similar situations in the past.
“It’s our jobs as coaches to try to put last week behind us,” Locklsey said. “I can tell you it lingered a little bit, but we’ve got to. It’s my job to get us through it, to get us to snap back.”
In each of the last two years, the final six games of the regular season have not treated Maryland as well as the first six. It has a combined 5-7 record in the second half of the last two seasons, but maybe more telling is that each game before then was a deeply frustrating loss.
Last season, it was a heartbreaking 31-29 loss to Purdue. The year before, it was an embarrassing 66-17 defeat against Ohio State.
“The first thing that goes through my mind when adversity hits is, ‘What could I have done to prevent it from happening?’” said defensive lineman Jordan Phillips. “It’s very important, you know, we do our best as teammates to constantly remind each other, ‘Hey, you know, that’s in the past.’”
Maryland is still 5-1, with a schedule that still provides it a genuine opportunity to have its best season in over 20 years. While the Terps faced a different type of opponent in the Buckeyes this past week, how they respond with crucial matchups ahead will ultimately dictate the direction of the year.
“This is an important week for us because this is really the first time we faced adversity,” Locksley said. “Like, we faced adversity in games where we get down 14, but this is coming out of a locker room where at the end of that game guys — the guys were, they were low in terms of they know that we had an opportunity and that we didn’t do our part.
Linebacker Ruben Hyppolite II is convinced this year’s team will react differently to a difficult loss.
“We’re gonna respond, we’re confident … it’s just adversity in the way right now. We’re gonna overcome,” Hyppolite said. “You know, even though we faced adversity, it’s always important to step back and be ready for the next play.”
Fortunately for Locksley’s team, its next two games are against bottom-tier conference opponents: Illinois and Northwestern.
Despite the lesser competition on tap, any lingering disappointment from the loss in Columbus will need to be evaporated come the Terps’ homecoming game against the Illini.
Maryland’s coach often voices his “Terps vs Terps” mantra, and the Terps will need to fight their own regrets if they want to keep up the positive momentum they built through their first six games.
“We won’t let one game define the first half of our season,” Locksley said. “And as I told our team, we’ve got to continue to love to win more than we hate to lose.”