In the midst of the latest stretch of heart-wrenching losses, Maryland football coach Michael Locksley has the support of a very important figure — his employer.
Athletic director Jim Smith on Wednesday entrusted Locksley to continue to lead the Terps.
“I have confidence in Locks,” Smith told The Baltimore Sun. “The big difference and advantage I have that others don’t is, I see his commitment and his passion and his belief and his strategy for Maryland football every day. We can debate play calls and end results all we want, but I believe that we’ve got the talent to head in the right direction.”
Smith, who was hired in June to succeed Damon Evans, backs Locksley on the heels of a three-game losing streak for the Terps (4-3, 1-3 Big Ten). All three setbacks involved fourth-quarter fades during which the team coughed up leads and watched Washington, Nebraska and UCLA escape with victories.
With Maryland on a bye this week, the program assured itself of a second winless October in the last three years and dropped to 7-16 in this month during Locksley’s time as head coach. In seven seasons in College Park, Locksley, a former Towson safety, owns a 37-44 overall record and a 17-43 mark in the conference.
Locksley, 55, did guide the school to three consecutive wins in bowl games from 2021 to 2023. But in each of his seven years, the Terps have sustained a losing skid of at least three games.
Locksley ranks fifth among the Big Ten coaches in longevity, trailing only Iowa’s Kirk Ferentz (27 years), Minnesota’s P.J. Fleck (9) and Ohio State’s Ryan Day (8).
Locksley is in the fifth year of a seven-year contract, earning $6.1 million as the fourth lowest paid coach in the conference. A buyout of $13,395,417 ranks as the cheapest among the league’s public universities, but Smith said that did not influence his thinking.
“That’s not the determining factor,” he said.
Smith’s stance contradicts the thoughts of many Terps fans. Ben Page, a 2001 graduate who founded the Old Line Tailgating Club, said several fans told him they favor a new voice.
“I want Mike to be successful, but I also want him to win games,” said Page, who said he trusts Smith to make the right call. “The comment that, ‘Hey, this isn’t the same old Maryland’ in the sense of getting blown out or having poor performances, I agree that it’s not the same old games that I’m watching, but it’s the same old results. People are invested in wins, and his job is to win games. He is the highest-paid employee in the state of Maryland, and his job is to win games.”
Several fans have questioned Locksley’s preference for passing instead of rushing in a Big Ten that prides itself on running, his teams’ recent history as one of the most penalized squads in the league and some questionable decision making. For instance, fans disagreed with his call to eschew trying to gain a first down on fourth-and-2 at Washington’s 32-yard line for a 55-yard field-goal attempt that redshirt freshman kicker Sean O’Haire missed before halftime. The Terps lost that game by four points. Maryland also punted on fourth-and-4 at UCLA’s 43 while clinging to a 10-7 lead in the fourth quarter in a game they Terps lost, 20-17.
Brian Rothman, a 2014 graduate, said as soon as he saw the Terps line up to punt in Saturday’s setback to the Bruins, he made a sizable bet on UCLA winning the game.
“I don’t think we gain anything from firing him now unless they have someone that is an absolute home run lined up,” he said. “But I think it’s hard with potentially back-to-back losing seasons to justify that. He certainly has earned a lot of goodwill, but when you watch the same things happen year after year and game after game, it’s tough to keep being optimistic.”
While the most recent spate of losses tormented fans, Smith cited the team’s competitive nature in those games as signs of progress from Maryland.
“We’ve lost three games by 10 total points,” he said. “We’ve played exceptionally well in all of them on one side of the ball or the other. What we haven’t done is put a complete game together, and that’s what we’re all waiting to see — when we put that complete game together and what that end result looks like.”
Big Ten Network college football analyst Yogi Roth said he tends to support a change if a coach has lost the locker room or the players are straying from schemes crafted by the staff. He said he hasn’t seen those signs from the Terps in 2025, although Locksley admitted he lost the locker room in 2024.
“I do believe that as long as there is hope — and I believe there is a ton of it on campus and within the walls of that facility —patience is going to be the best virtue right now,” said Roth, who was a wide receiver at Pittsburgh from 2000 to 2003 and the quarterbacks coach at USC from 2005 to 2009. “To me, one of the worst things that could happen is if there was a change and the roster that is curated of such local talent that’s so proud of this program and restoring it to the place where they all aspire to be all of a sudden scattered.”
There are already 11 head coaching openings at the NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision level. Two are in the Big Ten (Penn State and UCLA), five more belong to Power Four schools (Arkansas, Florida, Oklahoma State, Stanford and Virginia Tech), and the remaining four are in the Group of Six (Colorado State, Kent State, Oregon State and UAB).
Barry Desroches, a 1985 graduate who served as president of the Robert Smith School of Business Alumni Association, a member of the university’s Board of Visitors and the board of directors for the Terrapin Club, said Locksley deserves this season and at least the next to work with Smith and the newly reconfigured athletic department. Locksley’s 2026 recruiting class also includes in-state defensive end Zion Elee, regarded as one of the best high school players in the country.
“If it doesn’t work well next year, then there are tough decisions to make,” he said. “I just think with a team put into place, you’re going to see more revenue, more professionalism, more creativity and more support for the program. I’d like to see him get a chance to operate under those guidelines.”
Ending the streak might go a long way toward getting Locksley back in the fans’ good graces. Smith said he empathizes with their frustration, but said there’s too much at stake to make rash decisions based on emotions.
“We want high expectations,” he said. “That’s what fuels passion, and passion fuels anger. No one’s happy that we’ve lost our last three games. We’re all very disappointed, but everybody is focused on getting it right, and that’s what I get to see every day. I get to walk in the locker room and talk to the guys and know how focused they are and how much they believe. That’s why I’m probably more optimistic than many of our fans.”
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