As the virtual recruiter, Mike Locksley is delivering big in rebuilding Maryland football
Terps received their second four-star commitment since shelter-in-place order began and are among three schools left for local five-star quarterback Caleb Williams
Maryland football coach Mike Locksley knew when he returned to College Park in December of 2018 that it would take until the 2021 recruiting class - at the earliest - for his true magic as a recruiter to reap any tangible results.
Given the obstacles he faced in rebuilding a program that has endured five straight losing seasons and the tragic death of one of its players six months before Locksley’s arrival, the Terps appear to be ahead of schedule.
Maybe way ahead.
The announcement by defensive tackle Marcus Bradley Friday that he was joining Quince Orchard High teammate and fellow four-star prospect Demeioun Robinson wasn’t a total shock the way things are going for Locksley these days.
Neither was Maryland’s inclusion Monday on the short list of schools still in contention for five-star quarterback Caleb Williams, who posted Monday that he was down to Oklahoma, LSU and the Terps.
Starting with the last-minute flip by five-star wide receiver Rakim Jarrett from LSU back in December, Locksley hasn’t had many of his top recruiting targets turn him down. A total of eight players - three of them four-stars - have committed since.
All but one of Maryland’s 11 commits in a class now ranked 12th nationally and fifth in the Big Ten are from the DMV, fulfilling a promise Locksley made to rebuild the Terps around the local talent that typically wound up elsewhere.
While it’s crazy to think that Williams, ranked the No. 1 dual threat quarterback in the country and the No. 5 player overall in the Class of 2021, will choose the Terps, Maryland wasn’t given much of a chance to get Jarrett.
Or Bradley, who was also considering LSU, the reigning national champions, and Ohio State, for that matter.
I posed the possibility of Williams coming to Maryland Tuesday to Adam Friedman, the Mid-Atlantic recruiting analyst for Rivals.com who is based in Maryland and knows the top prospects and their families better than most. At least for now, Friedman believes he will wind up playing for the Sooners.
“It’s always a gamble betting against Mike Locksley for a kid from the DMV,” Friedman said. “Williams and his family and his coaches have great relationships with the coaches at Maryland. I think they trust these coaches to put him in the best possible situation if he were to end up at Maryland.”
Should that happen, #DMV2UMD might actually finish what #TheMovement started.
You remember #TheMovement, don’t you?
It began in 2014 when Locksley was Maryland’s offensive coordinator under Randy Edsall and continued after he eventually became the team’s interim coach for the second half of the 2015 season. It essentially ended when Jordan McNair died and DJ Durkin was fired.
There’s still no guarantee that every one of these commits will sign. Maryland fans still play the what-if game thinking about Dwayne Haskins Jr., who helped create #TheMovement by going to Ohio State after Durkin was hired. But now #DMV2UMD is ramping up.
As Locksley heads into his second season following a 3-9 debut last fall, the 2021 recruiting class is likely going to be the highest rated in school history - and potentially the most impactful. Williams would give Maryland its highest-rated player ever, but this is a class built around defense.
And Locksley is doing his best to keep the momentum going despite not being able to recruit in person.
With the ongoing “UNLOCKED” series marketed on the Maryland website, and now with his “Late Night With Locks” podcast starting to attract more viewers between his own Instagram page and NBC Sports Washington’s Facebook page, Locksley’s profile where it counts most - in the DMV - is starting to grow exponentially.
“I don’t know about media star, I’ve got a face that’s made for radio,” Locksley joked recently. “It’s like me being at the barber shop and me talking the guys and the ladies about sports, Maryland and DMV type situations. I think it’s been going well. It’s helped (with recruiting).”
Friedman said that Locksley’s use of social media platforms was beneficial even before the coronavirus pandemic. Now it’s become essential, not only for Locksley but for those he’s competing against.
“This recruiting dead period coming at an unexpected time is really highlighting the college coaches that do a really good job building personal relationships and trust with players through the current mediums of the day - social media, video conferencing,” Friedman said Tuesday. “Locksley certainly fits that description. The evidence is the recruiting run they’re on right now.”
Giving the credit to the athletic department’s marketing and public relations staffs - “They thought it was something that I think would humanize our program and give some in-depth and behind-the-scenes looks,” Locksley said - it’s all about recruiting for a coach who’s always had a reputation for being good at it.
“If there’s any silver lining (being unable to meet with recruits in person), this is the one opportunity that we’ll have because of COVID-19 and the coronavirus that these kids really don’t have a lot of other things they can be doing,” he told me. “The use of social media and how they all use it…it’s to create the connection with me, the DMV and the network we do have.”
What also could help Maryland right now is the uncertainty of what the new normal might become as the country slowly reopens. Part of that might be staying closer to home so that the families and friends of these highly-rated recruits won’t have to get on an airplane to see them play in college.
“With these kids unable to go to college campuses, and visit other places, we’re very fortunate because of our location, which I think is one of our biggest selling points for us,” Locksley said. “We’ve had a bunch of the kids that we were recruiting on campus multiple times, especially the ‘21 class over the last year and a half. That’s the first class we really targeted.”
Said Friedman, “Maryland is taking advantage of that (hometown) pull right now and are really emphasizing it. I think the current climate is helping to put it under a magnifying glass.”
One of the biggest disadvantages the Terps have faced is trying to recruit against schools which can deploy “armies” of support staff personnel to scout and make connection with prospects, especially during the season. Maryland’s support staff is much smaller compared to Big Ten powers like Ohio State and Michigan, Friedman said.
“In general it’s better for Maryland if they can really just focus they’re attentions on one thing right now,” Friedman said. “Some of these perennial powerhouse programs are not stretched as thin when the season is underway, or when there is practice going on in the spring. It almost levels the playing field a little more.”
Considering the already bleak prospects for 2020 with a still rebuilding team and what has been ranked the nation’s toughest schedule, what could also help is the Terps staying off the field for awhile, which seems more likely than not as college athletic directors and conference commissioners hunker down trying to figure out when it will be realistic to get back on the field.
In truth, not playing a single game for another nine months might be more beneficial for Locksley in fast-tracking Maryland’s rebuild than having his team play the part as the Big Ten East’s favorite human football pinata for yet another season come fall.
On the field, Locksley’s success as an offensive coordinator at Illinois and Alabama has not translated as a head coach at New Mexico or Maryland. Off the field, his record is quickly improving where he’s beaten some of the Power 5’s top teams, in particularly LSU, in recent months.
As long as Williams doesn’t sign with the Sooners, Locksley and the Terps are still in play.
“The longer it stretches out, the better it is for Maryland,” Friedman said.
In a conversation Friedman had with Williams and his father Monday, they said they wanted to “win championships and get in position to be the No. 1 pick in the draft and seeing a quality product on the field would go a long way to helping Williams see a brighter future at Maryland. To see progress in a program, seeing is believing.”
As Haskins might have done back in 2016 had he not decommitted from Maryland, Williams would become the “pied piper” Edsall had hoped Stefon Diggs might have become and bring other top prospects with him. It really will come down to how Williams views the impact he will have on a college program.
“Would he want to be part of not a rebuilding process, but a program to compete at a national level?” Friedman said. “We’ll have to find out.”
As long as the stay-at-home order remains in place in the DMV, as long as the uncertainty about if there will be 2020 college season to play and when it would start, Locksley will likely keep winning most of his recruiting battles. It seems only fitting that someone most call “Locks” is winning the lockdown.