It’s been a long time since Maryland has seen substantial success on the football field, but that could change under new coach Michael Locksley.
While speaking at Big Ten Media Days on Thursday in Chicago, Locksley spoke briefly about his time under Nick Saban while with Alabama over the previous three seasons.
“I get this question asked often. We’d need a whole ‘nother two-hour session for me to talk about the things I learned from Nick,” said Locksley, jokingly.
But if I learned anything from coach Saban, it’s one, consistency in your messaging. He talks about the process – I call it behaviors and habits. Also we do a thing called quality control and I think that is a huge thing because people think when you have the success we had at Alabama under coach Saban that it’s easy, but it’s hard to teach your players when you’re having success.”
Locksley explained that “success leaves clues” and “don’t waste a failure” are themes he’s going to bring to Maryland. At Alabama, the team would watch film of success and defeats to learn what could be done differently or better throughout the game.
“I’m going to take all the clues learned at Alabama, implement them, have our players learn the behaviors and habits to be not result-oriented, but to be process-oriented,” he said.
In March 2016, Locksley joined the Crimson Tide staff as an offensive analyst before moving into an offensive coordinator award, winning the Broyles Award following the 2018 season. On December 4 of last year, he accepted the job at Maryland.
Terrapin fans are hoping Locksley will bring that Alabama winning formula to Maryland.
“And if we can focus on learning and having those types of habits and behaviors,” he said, “I see Maryland being able to reach the success that we all want.”
