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Adam Rittenberg
LAS VEGAS — Maryland soccer coach Mike Locksley admitted Tuesday he “misplaced” the locker room in 2024 over which gamers to compensate, an element that led to the Terrapins’ worst season since his debut in 2019.
The Terrapins completed 4-8 and dropped all however certainly one of their Massive Ten contests. Maryland had extra gamers chosen within the NFL draft (six) than wins, because it misplaced its remaining 5 video games, all by 14 factors or extra. Locksley attributed a part of the struggles to the altering monetary panorama in school soccer, as Maryland needed to make choices on how one can compensate gamers by way of NIL offers and in the end created some divisions.
“I personal the truth that I misplaced my locker room,” Locksley advised ESPN. “And that is Coach Locks, the locker room king, telling you this panorama, I had to decide on between paying younger gamers who had been coming in or reward the older gamers which have been by way of the fireplace, three bowl wins, and I attempted to do each with restricted sources. And that is what you get: a locker room with the haves and have-nots.”
Locksley, who’s coming into his seventh season at Maryland and tenth general as an FBS coach, known as the expertise “a precious lesson” in how one can handle gamers, relationships and expectations. Maryland gained three consecutive bowl video games beneath Locksley from 2021 to 2023.
“You go exterior my locker room 1753235902 and I’ve an indication that claims: ‘Go away your Louis belts, depart your monetary statements and your automobile keys exterior of this locker room, as a result of in right here we’re all going to pay the identical value for achievement or failure,'” he mentioned. “If I’ve obtained to place my desk in that locker room, I’ll. A precious lesson discovered.”
Locksley mentioned the Home settlement and the cash Maryland distributes to its gamers have allowed him to focus extra on the locker room slightly than exterior fundraising.
Maryland will enter the season with questions at quarterback — the place UCLA switch Justyn Martin, redshirt freshman Khristian Martin and adorned incoming freshman Malik Washington, ESPN’s No. 134 general recruit, will compete — and different positions.
“I name this a yr of vulnerability for me, as a result of I have been torn about what to say about our staff when folks ask, however I do not know what sort of staff we’ve got but,” he mentioned. “Some folks, as a coach, it is like a foul factor to say, ‘I do not know.’ Nevertheless it’s a great factor that I do not know.”