Published Sep 25, 2022
What they said: Maryland discusses loss to Michigan
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Josh Henschke  •  Maize&BlueReview
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Maryland head coach, Mike Locksley

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Opening Statement

Obviously, have to give credit to Michigan. Top-five program. Like I told our team, we don't believe in moral victories. Close is not good enough. I'm proud of the way our team fought. I like the effort our team played with. We faced adversity throughout the game, including spotting them a touchdown right at the beginning which I said here, good teams don't need help and we sure gave them a cheap, easy one right off the bat with the opening kickoff. Obviously, the positives in the game like this, I thought our penalties went down. We had a good pace of play, we had over 70 plays run on offense. I thought situationally on offense, we played good on third and fourth down. Thing we know is you can't turn the ball over against good teams. We had two critical plays in the game. A fourth and 1 late in the first half where we weren't lined up correctly, gave them a cheap one. Third and five when the game was right at its critical moment, we didn't have an edge to our defense. That's on us as coaches and players to figure out when we have good opportunities against good teams, how to execute at a high level. Today, we didn't do enough of that. Got to get that cleaned up. I can't dwell on this game. As a team, we can't dwell on this game because we've got another great opportunity in the Shell next week against a good Michigan State team. For us, we've got to get things corrected. We've got to watch the tape and make sure we've got the right people doing the right things to win games. Again, I like our effort by our team. We played for four quarters. Would like to see us not give good teams the opportunities we gave Michigan and they took advantage of it. Definitely, a step in the right direction for our program to get this stuff fixed and get it fixed in time for the opportunity in the Shell next week.

On doing what it took to try to beat Michigan

The disappointing thing is we talked about what it needed to take to win up here. Which was to give ourselves a chance, getting the game into the fourth quarter. We had opportunities to put ourselves ahead, which puts pressure against a good team like Michigan. From coaching to our best players, we've got to make the right calls. Our players have got to make the play when they're there to be made. If we can learn how to do that against teams like this, I think we took a step forward in terms of getting it to where we needed to get the game in the fourth quarter opportunity for us. We did that. We didn't make the plays when the plays were there to be made. It starts with coaching, it starts with our best players making the plays when they're there to be made.

On Maryland playing up to competition

It's more about us than Michigan. It's going to always be that way, in my mind because you watch the way the game played out, there's nobody in our locker room making this into a Super Bowl. Hey, Michigan is a top-five team so I give them tremendous credit with the way they've built their program and established it. We knew that we would have a chance to be in this game and we would have to make some plays to take it because they won't give it to you and we didn't take it today.

Offensive lineman, Spencer Anderson

On playing Michigan tough

We knew we were going in there to cause a big upset. Obviously, it didn't turn out how we wanted it to be. I feel like the confidence is there. I feel like we had the right confidence today, things just didn't go in our favor.

On the Terrapins spotting Michigan seven points to begin the game

I was going around telling people it's cool, we spotted them seven points but on to the next. We responded pretty well. Everyone wasn't really fazed by it, it's the ebb and flow of the game.