UCLA Football Preview: Maryland Coaching Staff is Full of Struggling Retreads
Plus, a look at the Terrapins' special teams
Maryland head coach Mike Locksley is in his third stint coaching the Maryland Terrapins. From 1997 to 2002, he coached the team’s running backs. In 2003, he left College Park for Florida, and after two seasons in Gainesville, he followed Ron Zook to Illinois, where he served as the offensive coordinator for the Fighting Illini.
Locksley’s first head coaching opportunity came when New Mexico head coach Rocky Long retired and he was named the Lobos’ head coach on December 9, 2008. In his first two seasons, New Mexico won just two games and lost 22. Following an 0-4 start in 2011, he was fired and replaced by George Barlow.
He returned to Maryland in 2012 to be Randy Edsall’s offensive coordinator. On October 11, 2015, he was named interim head coach when Edsall was fired. His results in the rest of 2015 mirrored his results at New Mexico. The team was just 1-5 under Locksley.
When DJ Durkin was hired as the new head coach of the Terrapins, Locksley went to Alabama as an offensive analyst. He was promoted to co-offensive coordinator and wide receivers coach the following season and, in 2018, he became the offensive coordinator for the Crimson Tide.
Helping to lead the Tide to CPF Championship Game earned Locksley his current opportunity as the head coach for the Terps. Since returning to College Park in 2019, his teams have won 37 and lost 43 and only three of his six teams before this year have had winning records. Last season, they finished 4-8 overall and 1-8 in conference play.
So far this year, he has Maryland sitting at 4-2, but that record is somewhat deceiving. Three of the team’s four wins came against Florida Atlantic, Northern Illinois, and FCS school Towson. Their lone conference win came at Wisconsin. Since that game, they’ve dropped back-to-back games against Washington and Nebraska. It’s very possible that they could be looking at the same conference record as last season. If that happens, Locksley could find his seat warming up.
This season, Locksley has a new offensive coordinator in Pep Hamilton. Hamilton made a name for himself with Stanford during the Andrew Luck years after bouncing around as an NFL assistant from 2003 to 2009. He was originally the receivers coach for the Cardinal in 2010 and was promoted to offensive coordinator the following season when Jim Harbaugh left and David Shaw took over the program.
Hamilton left Stanford in 2013 to become the offensive coordinator of the Indianapolis Colts, a move which reunited him with Luck. He lasted almost three seasons before the Colts fired him in November 2015. He continued to bounce around with a stint at Michigan being his only multi-season job since. Before signing on witt the Terps, he had been out of football since the end of the 2022 season when he was not retained by the Houston Texans.
Locksley also replaced his defensive coordinator after last season. In 30 years of coaching at the college and pro level, this season is only Ted Monachino’s third season as a defensive coordinator. Previously, he served a two-year stint as the DC for the Indianapolis Colts in 2016 and 2017.
The one thing Monachino may have going for him is his base defense. The Terrapins will run a 3-3-5 base defense which is different from any base defense UCLA has faced this season, but the reality is that they have essentially pulled a defensive tackle in favor of third linebacker. It may give Maryland’s defense a little more flexibility between the pass and the run, but it very well could open up the running game for the Bruins as long as UCLA can adjust to the look of a defense they haven’t seen yet this season until this week.
Special Teams
Maryland’s kicking duties will be handled by Sean O’Haire. The redshirt freshman from Ireland has been a very good kicker so far for the Terps. He’s made 13 of his 15 field goal attempts with a long of 49 yards. One of his misses was from greater than 50 yards while the other one came between 30 and 39 yards.
While it looks like O’Haire will also handle kickoffs based on the fact that he kicked off six times against Nebraska, redshirt freshman punter Philip Noyes had been kicking off prior to the Nebraska game. O’Haire averaged 60.0 yards per kickoff last week while Noyes is averaging 59.2 yards per kickoff this season. So, there may not be much difference between them.
Redshirt junior Bryce McFerson will be the Terrapins punter. McFerson has punted 30 times this season and he is averaging 46.67 yards per punt. His season long was a 62-yarder ad eight of his punts were longer than 50 yards. Six went for touchbacks while six landed inside the 20 and 13 were fair catches.
Sophomore receiver Josiah McLaurin has taken four of the team’s nine kickoff returns. His longest was just 18 yards and he’s averaging 15.5 yards per return. McLaurin also has the most punt returns on the team with five. He’s averaging just 5.6 yards per punt return and his longest punt return was just nine yards.
Sophomore defensive back Ricardo Cooper, Jr. has returned three kickoffs and two punts. He’s averaging 19.33 yards per kickoff return and just four yards per punt return. His longest kickoffs return is a team-best 23-yarder while he gained eight yards on one punt return and none on the other.
Senior receiver Jalil Farooq has returned four punts for 19 yards and his longest was a 10-yard return, but the team’s best punt returner may be freshman defensive back Messiah Delhomme. Delhomme has two returns—a team-best 19-yard return and an 11-yard return. So, both of his punt returns have been better than anyone other return from any other player.
Go Bruins!!!
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