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Mike Locksley says Maryland can now start talking about Big Ten championships
By Keith Farner
Published:
Mike Locksley understands that in previous seasons at Big Ten Media Days, he couldn’t make a championship statement. Now he can.
“For us, our program is at a point finally, where we can say we’re here to compete for Big Ten championships,” the Maryland coach said. “You haven’t heard me say that in the previous 4 times I’ve been in front of you guys, but I think now is the time. But we’re not going to let goals like winning championships get in the way of doing the work and our players understand that.”
Locksley believes as a top 30 team in the country, Maryland is at the point from a development perspective that it’s built the line of scrimmage pipeline to compete with other programs. Previously, Maryland’s elite talent centered on skill position players on the outside. For example, the Terrapins this year had a pair of offensive linemen drafted.
“You look on the defensive line and the O-line, we all understand that to win in the Big Ten, it starts with how you play inside the trenches,” Locksley said. “So there’s been no doubt that we put a premium on how we recruit to play in the Big Ten. To me, it means winning in November, and the way you do that is by establishing the ability to run the football as well as stopping the run, and we’ll continue to recruit those positions in that manner.”
Keith Farner has written about college football for newspapers and web sites since 2005.