As the rain came down on the dozens of sadistic Maryland fans still inside SECU Stadium watching a 51-point beatdown, it felt like the end of an era. There are some results that are so utterly disastrous you just can't survive them. Even when there isn't immediate action, the loss is so ugly it becomes impossible to forget.
And that's what a thoroughly embarrassing 54-3 home loss to UCLA felt like for Mike Locksley. There's no eagerness from Maryland to fire Locksley early on in the season. The hope from the beginning was that offseason changes, both in staffing and in increased roster spending, would be enough to get Maryland back to a bowl game.
But after back-to-back bad home losses, it increasingly feels more like a matter of when, not if, Maryland moves on from Locksley rather than let him return for another year in 2027. If Maryland lets Locksley go before the end of the season, it'll owe him more than $9 million in buyout money. Just four games into his tenure in Los Angeles, UCLA coach Bob Chesney's team looked more disciplined, faster and better-coached than what Locksley trotted out there in his eighth season guiding the Terrapins' program.
It's Locksley's second consecutive home loss to a first-year coach after James Franklin and Virginia Tech left College Park with a win a week ago. When Locksley is no longer racking up wins in September, it sure feels like the program needs a new voice. When he arrived in December 2018, Maryland's football program was in shambles.
It was still reeling from the tragic death of football player Jordan McNair which led to an investigation and the eventual resignation of previous head coach D.J. There was no one better equipped than Locksley to restore trust in the DMV area and convince parents it was safe to send their sons to play for him in College Park. As a D.C. native who played college football at Towson, Locksley genuinely loves Maryland and arrived on the job with the belief he could be the man to finally awake a program considered a sleeping giant.
It was clear that when Locksley, who had assistant stints under Ralph Friedgen and Randy Edsall, came back to Maryland, he had learned from his time working under legendary Alabama coach Nick Saban. As Locksley put it, he knew the chocolate chip cookie recipe to win big in college football, he just had to tweak it to work at Maryland. It was tough sledding in those early transfer portal and Name, Image and Likeness days as Maryland's financial firepower was a water gun compared to the bazookas of many of its Big Ten rivals.
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