Maryland Hires Mike Locksley To Be Offensive Coordinator

by Jeremy Mauss on Dec 14, 2011 6:57 PM PST in New Mexico Football

This is not a joke. Maryland thought it would be a good idea to hire former New Mexico Lobos head coach Mike Locksley to take over for Gary Crowton as their offensive coordinator. The odd thing is that Maryland fans love this hire. It could be that Crowton was a bad offensive coordinator (which he was) and that Locksley is some supposedly great recruiter in the D.C. area.

What some fail to point out are the massive character flaws he had. We all know about the sexual harassment/ageism suit during his first spring on campus, punching an assistant coach in the face and the latest about a recruit driving one of his cars while being drunk.

Also, Locksley was a a terrible head coach, his offensives were just awful, he never made adjustments and he could not recruit players to Albuquerque. I get bringing in good players to New Mexico is tough, but I think his title of master recruiter in the D.C. area is overblown. At his prior stops at Florida and Illinois it is not hard to get good talent there, especially at Florida.

I think his recruiting skills have more to do where he was coaching than his actual skills to bring in players. Maryland fans will soon find out that their offense will be even more plain and unproductive than it was with Gary Crowton.

Oh, and he killed an above average Mountain West program in just over two years to one of the worst in all of college football.

Have fun with Locksley Maryland fans.

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Eh

Locksley was at Maryland before (late 90s – early 00s) and apparently recruited pretty well from the mid-Atlantic, so I’m sure many fans are hoping for that to return. I suppose it’s worth noting that when Friedgen came on as Maryland’s head coach in 2000, Locksley was one of only two assistants he retained from the previous regime, and after Locksley left, the MD football program reverted to mediocrity (the Terps had three great years from 2001 – 2003; Locksley left MD after 2002 but was named the recruiting coordinator in ’98).

Maryland fans are very frustrated by everything that’s gone on this past season in football, and are furious with Crowton (former LSU OC, now gone after one year as MD OC). They’re mad at HC Edsall too but know they can’t get rid of him (too much $$).

I’m astonished that Maryland has apparently hired him, given his problems at NM and the fact that Edsall basically has a military-ish culture for his program. Not sure what to think about any of this yet. Maybe he’s ok as a coordinator and awful as a head coach.

Assumption is the mother of all @#%-ups.
Recommended reading: Death to the BCS

by mdak06 on Dec 14, 2011 7:19 PM PST reply actions 1 recs

I think you hit the nail on the head mdak ...

Locks is a good OC but a lousy HC. From my view point, he’s actually a good recruiter. NM had talent on the team. He just wasn’t qualified to be head coach and he didn’t have the skills to bring the talent together. He’s back in his element and will do fine. But he is not head coach material.

by LoboJo on Dec 14, 2011 8:22 PM PST reply actions