D6 EZ M2 THE WASHINGTON POST.FRIDAY, AUGUST 30 , 2019
themselves w ell. Interim coach
Matt C anada did h is best to
navigate seas Magellan would
have found too r ough to sail. But
the p rogram, then, had n o choice
but t o live week-to-week, day-to-
day, h our-to-hour.
Now Locksley h as to provide
stability and direction n ot just for
the w eek leading into t he season
opener a gainst Howard but into
next year a nd beyond. He h as an
entire p rogram to build on sands
that have only shifted.
The steps h e took to that end
were immediate and, h e believes,
important. He and h is staff spent
the o ffseason eating dinner with
the p layers nightly a t Gossett
Football Te am House. He b roke
the s quad i nto position groups
and i nvited each o ver to his house
on Sundays for t ime in the pool
and a t the grill. He t ook t he Te rps
to see the Packers a nd Ravens
play an exhibition in Baltimore.
He o rganized a karaoke night in
which he endured earsplitting
renditions of some rap songs —
“kind of awful,” he said — before
the c oach himself, wearing a
crown, implored the t eam to join
him i n Sister S ledge’s “We Are
Family.”
“I think you can coach a kid
any kind of w ay y ou w ant to if he
knows y ou care about t hem,”
Locksley said. “Time i s our most
valuable commodity, a nd when
you give t hese kids your personal
time, it’s r eally important to ’em.... I just think the t ime you invest
in them like that, when they see
you outside of being ‘Coach,’
makes it easier to be ‘Coach.’ ”
He i s the coach at t he
University o f Maryland, one of
the v ery few who could s ay w ith a
straight face it’s t he job h e has
wanted his whole life. B ut
because of t he circumstances he
stepped into — circumstances
that left t he best in t he business
advising him to stay away —
Michael Locksley has c hallenges
other first-year coaches don’t
face. Not just the athletic
department but the e ntire s chool
needs h im to succeed s o that
reputations a re restored, s o that
the f lagship university c an
become a place where the best the
state has to offer — football
players o r not — can come feeling
they will b e cared for.
[email protected]
Fo r more by Barry Svrluga, visit
wa shingtonpost.com/svrluga.excell ed in football, h ighlighted
by three straight league
championships under Bobby
Ross in the 1980s. T he present
and t he future mean life in the
Big Te n East, with annual dates
against those Buckeyes,
Wolverines and Nittany Lions.
Since the Terps joined the
conference in 2014, they have
gone 2-13 against that trio, and
the average score of those games
has b een roughly 4 3-16. T hat’s not
competitive. And that’s not going
away.
“If we can figure out — which
we will — how to control the
recruiting b ase h ere,” Locksley
said, “we’ll be a ble t o accelerate
turning t his program around.”
But there’s a nother, more
immediate concern that has
nothing to do with Maryland’s
environs but rather concerns the
very identity n ot just of the
football program or the athletic
department but of the entire
school: How does Maryland right
itself after McNair’s d eath, now
more than 14 months ago? T he
investigations are over. Coach DJ
Durkin and his s taff a re g one.
Can Maryland move f orward
now?
“I feel like our team is not in
the h ealing process no more,”
McFarland said. “We’re always
going to play for Jordan McNair.
But as a team, w e feel like you’ve
got to sink to rock b ottom to hit
the t op. We f eel like that’s t he
story we want to tell.”
Throughout the unsavoriness
of 2018, it was always — and often
only — the players w ho acquittedchampionship and 3 1 games in its
first three y ears under Friedgen,
it did so with studs Locksley
recruited from t his a rea: t ight
end Vernon Davis, sack machine
Shawne Merriman, linebacker
E.J. Henderson, safety Madieu
Williams and o thers. When
Locksley left t o be t he recruiting
coordinator at F lorida, he
plucked defensive e nd Derrick
Harvey f rom Prince George’s
County. When he followed fired
Florida coach Ron Zook to
Illinois, h e stole w ide receiver
Arrelious Benn and defensive
back Vontae Davis ( Vernon’s
brother) from t he District and
linebacker Ian Thomas f rom
DeMatha; t hey became the c ore
of the 2007 t eam that s ent the
Illini to the Rose Bowl for the first
time in a quarter-century.
Think it’s a coincidence that
this year’s A labama roster
features eight players from
Maryland and t he District? I t’s
not.
“To me, I kind o f opened up
people’s e yes,” L ocksley said.
“Like: ‘Wow. There’s t hat type of
talent in that area?’ ”
The trick, f or Locksley, is to
understand Maryland’s
challenges even as he tries to
stress its potential. Those
challenges are significant both in
the n ear and the long term. Some
are solvable. Some a ren’t g oing
away.
What will b e a perennial battle:
the s uccess Locksley remembers
Maryland having a ll came i n the
ACC, a basketball conference in
which the Terps occasionallygiven Locksley h ad a t his disposal
Crimson Tide quarterback Tua
Ta govailoa and a slew of o ffensive
players w ho certainly will s tar in
the N FL. In t he winter of 2018-19,
the c lub of “better jobs than
Maryland” was hardly exclusive.
And yet Locksley thought w hat
no one e lse in the country would
think.
“In the back of my m ind,”
Locksley said, “as I’m listening to
him, I’m thinking, ‘ There really
ain’t a better job than Maryland.’ ”
From anyone else, t hat’s an
insane evaluation, and m aybe a
year from now, five years from
now, Locksley w ill reconsider. B ut
on the e ve of the Te rrapins’ first
season with tragedy and turmoil
fully in the r earview mirror, they
have as their head c oach not
someone climbing to reach t he
next j ob but someone who
climbed to get the j ob he finally
has. At a time when the p rogram
was teetering on the e dge, that
matters.
“When he f irst came a nd s aid
that this is the o nly j ob he
wanted, everybody kind of
believed it and bought in because
he’s b een here for a long time,”
redshirt sophomore running back
Anthony McFarland said. “He’s
from this a rea. He c oached some
of the greatest players we’ve had
on the f ield, r ecruited some of the
best to play here a t Maryland. A t
the e nd of the day, I t hink it
speaks for itself how much love
he has for this university.”
That p art is r eal because
Locksley not o nly u sed t o sneak
into (now-renamed) Byrd
Stadium as a kid who grew up in
Southwest D.C. back in the day,
but h e spent two stints as a
Maryland assistant — the f irst
under Ron Vanderlinden a nd
then Ralph Friedgen in the late
199 0s a nd e arly 2000s, the next
under Randy Edsall f rom 2012 to
2015, a run that concluded with a
tenure a s the interim head c oach
when Edsall was fired midseason.
When Locksley b ucked S aban’s
advice and accepted the
Maryland job, he did s o with eyes
wide open.
“I know the fleas of t he place —
meaning the good, b ad a nd the
ugly,” h e said. “I’ve been a part of a
lot of the good. I’ve seen it
growing up. I’ve s een it as a young
coach t hat you c an win here.”
When Maryland won a n ACC
SVRLUGA FROM D1
College Football
BY GENE WANGcharlottesville — Freshly
minted banners dangle outside of
Scott Stadium emblazoned with
“The Standard,” an updated ver-
sion of the motto the Virginia
football team adopted when
Coach Bronco Mendenhall took
over three seasons ago.
At that time, players spoke
about “The New Standard” dur-
ing the nascent stages of a re-
build. Over the summer, in the
wake of the program’s first bowl
triumph since 2005, senior cap-
tains Joe Reed and Bryce Hall
suggested a tweak.
With Mendenhall’s blessing,
the Cavaliers dropped “New”
from the team credo. After 14
victories over two years — one
more than in the previous four
seasons combined — and with
Virginia entering the 2019 season
as the favorite to win the ACC
Coastal Division, there’s nothing
unfamiliar about winning.
“Last year we were on the
outside looking in,” Cavaliers
quarterback Bryce Perkins said.
“Now teams are looking at Vir-
ginia, but we’re not focusing on
that just because we know what
we [expect] for ourselves. We’re
not satisfied even though we may
be picked” t o win the Coastal.
A different school has won the
Coastal in each of the past six
years, leaving Virginia as the only
program in the division without a
title in that time. The Cavaliers’
bid to win their first division
championship begins anew Sat-
urday, when they travel to face
Pittsburgh in the season opener.
Virginia twice has placed sec-
ond in the Coastal. Last year the
Cavaliers (8-5, 4-4) finished tied
for third, won their most games
overall since 2011 and secured a
bowl berth in consecutive sea-
sons for the first time since 2004
and 2005.
“Last season was last season,
and it was great what we did, but
at this point we’re working for
2019,” linebacker Charles
Snowden said. “So we see that
we’re capable of making plays
because most of the guys are
back, but recognizing that last
year was last year and to do that
again we have to work even hard-
er.”
Snowden is coming off the
most productive season of his
football career, which began later
than most: At 6-foot-7, he once
focused on basketball and didn’t
join his high school football team
until his junior year.
Now a 235-pound college ju-
nior, he led all players at his
position in major college football
last year in pass breakups (nine)
and passes defended (11), usinghis considerable reach to deflect
balls and block throws from get-
ting beyond the line of scrim-
mage.
He h ad 62 tackles, including 7^1 / 2
for losses, 2^1 / 2 s acks and a pair of
interceptions to go along with
one forced fumble and one fum-
ble recovery, underscoring
Snowden’s versatility and disrup-
tive presence in Mendenhall’s 3 -4
alignment.
“We played a lot of young guys
on the front seven,” senior safety
Joey Blount said. “That was prob-
ably, people thought, the weakest
part of our defense, just a lot ofinjuries, uncertainty with the
team in that aspect. But I’ve seen
a lot of leadership coming out of
that group. I see a lot of people
growing from last year.”
Inside linebacker Jordan
Mack, a senior, missed four
games last year with an ailing
shoulder but still finished second
on the team in tackles (66) and
tied for second in sacks with
Snowden.
The Cavaliers ranked 20th na-
tionally last season in yards al-
lowed per game (330.5) and 21st
in scoring defense (20.1), al-
though pass rushing specialistChris Peace, who led the team in
sacks, and starting safety Juan
Thornhill graduated.
“I think there is the under-
standing what we did last year,
trying to learn from our mistakes,
then kind of put that behind us,”
said cornerback Bryce Hall, who
opted to come back for his senior
year instead of entering the NFL
draft. “I think the more you kind
of dwell on what you did in the
past can make you complacent.”
Among the top priorities head-
ing into this season is finding a
way to win close games. Three of
Virginia’s losses last year came byfour points or fewer, including
two in a row in overtime to close
the regular season.
The most disheartening of
those was to Virginia Te ch, which
extended its winning streak in
the series to 15 when Perkins lost
a fumble on a botched exchange
with running back Jordan Ellis
and the Cavaliers trailing, 34-31,
during their only overtime pos-
session.
In the previous game, Virginia
place kicker Brian Delaney
missed a 35-yard field goal at-
tempt in overtime after Georgia
Te ch’s Wesley Walls booted a 40-
yarder on the way to the Yellow
Jackets’ 30-27 win at Bobby Dodd
Stadium.
“We have as good a chance as
anyone on our side of the division
to win this league,” Mendenhall
said. “I don’t t hink that’s a stretch
to say that. We have a returning
quarterback. We have a strong
defense. We have a culture of
excellence. We have confidence.
We have an expectation that
that’s what we’re capable of.
“Now doing it is the next part.”
[email protected]Having set the standard, Virginia aims for a breakthrough
Continuing their rebuilding process under Mendenhall, Cavaliers are the preseason favorite to win their first ACC Coastal Division championship
BARRY SVRLUGA
Locksley is on the job, and it’s the one he always wanted
ASSOCIATED PRESSTravis Etienne ran for a career-
high 205 yards and three touch-
downs, including one from
90 yards out, and No. 1 Clemson
overpowered Georgia Te ch, 52-14,
on Thursday night for its
16th straight victory.
On an offense filled with stars,
it was Etienne who shone bright-
est for the defending national
champions. His 90-yard score
tied for the longest rushing
touchdown in Tigers history. Eti-
enne added scoring runs of
14 yards and 48 yards as Clemson
opened a 35-0 l ead and was never
pressed by the Yellow Jackets in
the season opener for both ACC
teams in Clemson, S.C.
It was not the flashy return
that most of college football ex-
pected out of Clemson quarter-
back Trevor Lawrence. The 6-
foot-6 sophomore, so poised and
polished in leading the Tigers to
a 15-0, title-winning season,
threw two interceptions in the
first half. Lawrence had just four
picks all last year.
Still, Lawrence had his mo-
ments. His hustle after a bad
interception knocked defensive
back Tre Swilling out of bounds
at the Clemson 3, and the Tigers’
defense kept the Yellow Jackets
from scoring. Lawrence opened
things with a six-yard rushing
score and threw a perfect pass to
Te e Higgins for a 62-yard touch-
down.
Lawrence finished 13 for 23 for
168 yards.
l TEXAS A&M 41, TEXAS
STATE 7: Kellen Mond threw
three touchdown passes and ran
for another score in just more
than three quarters, and the
No. 12 Aggies’ defense had four
interceptions in College Station,
Te x.
Mond, who threw for
194 yards, had touchdown passes
of 21 and three yards and ran for
a touchdown in the first two
quarters as Te xas A&M raced to a
28-0 halftime lead.
l CENTRAL FLORIDA 62,
FLORIDA A&M 0: Former
Notre Dame star Brandon Wim-bush threw for 168 yards and two
touchdowns in his d ebut, helping
the 17 th-ranked Knights open the
season with a rout in Orlando.
The redshirt senior completed
12 of 23 passes without an inter-
ception while sharing playing
time with true freshman Dillon
Gabriel, who finished second in
the competition for the starting
quarterback job that opened be-
cause of an injury sidelining
two-time American Athletic Con-
ference offensive player of the
year McKenzie Milton.
l CINCINNATI 24, UCLA 14:
Junior running back Michael
Warren II scored one touchdown
on the ground and caught one of
sophomore quarterback Des-
mond Ridder’s two scoring pass-
es for the host Bearcats.
Ridder also connected with
graduate-transfer tight end Jo-
siah Deguara for a touchdown,
senior kicker Sam Crosa added a
44-yard field goal and sopho-
more safety Ja’von Hicks came
up with a fumble recovery and an
interception for Cincinnati.Richmond wins opener easily
Joe Mancuso passed for
131 yards and rushed for a career-
high 77, including two short
touchdown runs, as Richmond
defeated visiting Jacksonville,
38-19, in its season opener.
Mancuso opened the scoring
with a four-yard run in the first
quarter and capped the Spiders’
scoring with a run from the 3 in
the final seconds of the third
quarter.
The Spiders have won
14 straight home openers since
2005.
l BOWLING GREEN 46,
MORGAN STATE 3: Darius
Wade threw for 253 yards and
three touchdowns and the Fal-
cons allowed just 70 total yards
in routing the Bears of the Foot-
ball Championship Subdivision
in Bowling Green, Ohio.
Scot Loeffler made his coach-
ing debut for Bowling Green,
Ty rone Wheatley debuted as
Morgan State coach and Wade
saw his first action since trans-
ferring from Boston College in
2017.
Bowling Green outgained the
Bears 620 yards to 70 and had
37 first downs compared to four
for Morgan State.ROUNDUPEtienne and No. 1 Tigers
run away with opener
CLEMSON 52,
GEORGIA TECH 14CHUCK BURTON/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Last year, Coach Bronco Mendenhall’s Cavaliers won their most games since 2011 and secured their second straight bowl berth.Virginia schedule
D ATE OPPONENT TIME
Tomorrow at Pittsburgh 7:30
Sept. 6William & Mary8
Sept. 14 Florida State 7:30Sept. 21 Old Dominion TBA
Sept. 28 at Notre Dame 3:30
Oct. 11 at Miami 8
Oct. 19 DukeTBAOct. 26 at Louisville TBANov. 2
at North
CarolinaTBANov. 9Georgia Te ch TBA
Nov. 23 Liberty TBANov. 29 Virginia Te ch TBADec. 7
ACC
championship*TBA* in Charlotte, if necessaryJONATHAN NEWTON/THE WASHINGTON POST
Terrapins Coach Michael Locksley said, “In the back of my mind... I’m thinking, ‘There really ain’t a better job than Maryland.’ ”