Maryland To Part Ways with Football Head Coach Mike Locksley
By Rob Reinhart
College Park, MD — Maryland is parting ways with football HC Mike Locksley at some point over the coming weeks, per source.
Saturday’s blowout homecoming loss to Indiana was the final factor in the decision, a source tells me. Locksley led Maryland to three straight winning seasons and three consecutive bowl wins from 2021-23, but has failed to reach that level since.
Career Look-back
When Mike Locksley took over as head football coach at the University of Maryland in December 2018, the program was in search of stability and identity. A Washington D.C. native with deep recruiting roots in the region, Locksley was no stranger to College Park. His ties to Maryland stretched back decades through multiple assistant coaching stints, and his résumé included a national championship as Alabama’s offensive coordinator in 2017. His hiring was seen as both a homecoming and a chance to revitalize a program long overshadowed by the Big Ten’s elite.
Locksley’s first two seasons were rocky but necessary steps in rebuilding. The 2019 campaign, his first full year in charge, ended at 3–9 as Maryland struggled to find consistency on both sides of the ball. The following year, the COVID-shortened 2020 season offered only modest progress, with a 2–3 finish in conference play. The early years of his tenure were marked by player development, staff turnover, and the challenges of implementing his offensive system within one of the nation’s toughest conferences.
The turning point came in 2021. That season, Maryland finished 7–6, securing its first winning record since 2014 and routing Virginia Tech 54–10 in the New Era Pinstripe Bowl. The 54 points were a school record for a bowl game and a clear sign that Locksley’s offensive philosophy was taking hold. Under his leadership, the Terrapins’ attack became dynamic and explosive, setting school records for total offense and passing yards. Quarterback Taulia Tagovailoa flourished in Locksley’s system, and Maryland began to look like a legitimate middle-tier Big Ten contender.
Momentum carried into 2022 and 2023. The Terrapins finished 8–5 in 2022, including a Duke’s Mayo Bowl victory over NC State, then followed that up with another winning season and a decisive 31–13 win over Auburn in the 2023 Music City Bowl. For the first time in nearly two decades, Maryland posted three consecutive winning seasons and three straight bowl wins. These years represented tangible progress for a program that had too often hovered near the conference basement. Locksley’s strength as a recruiter—particularly in the D.C.-Maryland-Virginia “DMV” region—helped the Terps add depth and athleticism across the roster, while his offensive system gave Maryland a modern identity built around tempo and big plays.
However, 2024 brought an abrupt downturn. Maryland stumbled to a 4–8 record, including just one Big Ten win, reigniting concerns about the team’s ability to sustain success. The regression highlighted familiar issues: inconsistent play against conference heavyweights, depth concerns, and difficulty closing out winnable games. For Locksley, entering his seventh season in 2025, the narrative shifted from celebration to recalibration. His offseason message, branded as “Elevate,” emphasized raising standards and restoring the edge that fueled Maryland’s earlier rise.
Locksley’s tenure has delivered clear achievements: he’s rebuilt the program’s credibility, established a productive offensive system, and reconnected Maryland football with its local recruiting base. Yet he also faces mounting pressure to prove the program can take the next step—challenging for upper-tier status in a Big Ten now more competitive than ever.
In many ways, Locksley had accomplished what Maryland hired him to do: bring stability, excitement, and respect back to a struggling program. But as the Terrapins enter the middle of the decade, the question remained whether he can turn respectable seasons into something more. The answer? No.