MIKE BURKE
Allegany Communications Sports
The Baltimore Ravens played on Sunday as though John Harbaugh had never left. The University of Maryland played on Saturday as though Mike Locksley had never left.
That’s right. Mike Locksley hasn’t left. Yet.
All in all, not the best football weekend in the state of Maryland, making it just another brick in the wall, and that includes the Landover Commanders, who not only lost to the Dallas Cowboys, but again lost quarterback Jayden Daniels to another injury to the same elbow.
When the Ravens fired John Harbaugh as head coach last January, Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti said, “factually, we led the league in giving up big leads in the fourth quarter. It’s not something winning organizations do.”
No, it’s not, and neither is losing most of its home games, but last Sunday, one week after the Everything’s Fixed victory over the Indianapolis Colts, Jesse Minter’s first as a head coach, the Ravens continued to do both, losing 24-17 at home to the New Orleans Saints, an 8.5-point underdog, after leading by 11 points late in the second quarter, and being outscored 15-0 in the fourth quarter.
Since 2019, the Ravens have lost 15 games in which they had a double-digit lead, the most in the NFL in that span, and it was the Ravens’ fourth straight loss at M&T Bank Stadium and the seventh loss in their past 10 games there.
Minter talked all summer about his team being at its best when its best is required, but the Ravens certainly weren’t on Sunday, particularly on defense. Allowing two fourth-quarter touchdown drives after not allowing a touchdown all game revisited the recent painful past, as did not giving Derrick Henry the football in the second half.
Why must offensive coordinators/play callers believe it has been put upon them to reinvent the wheel? And why do head coaches, old and new, allow them to try?
As for familiar happenings with familiar faces, Maryland lost another nationally-televised game in front of a sellout home crowd, 35-26, to Virginia Tech, snapping a 20-game non-conference winning streak, which was dubious to begin with when you consider the Terps have lost their last eight conference games.
Adding insult to injury, it marked yet another loss for Locksley to James Franklin, the former Maryland assistant and head coach-in-waiting.
The young, but vaunted Maryland defense couldn’t stop Hokies quarterback Ethan Grunkemeyer and allowed a tight end to catch 12 (12!) passes. Maryland trailed by double digits most of the night and was again outprepared, outschemed and saddled by familiar game mismanagement from its sideline.
The meat of the Maryland schedule has arrived, the very meat that has turned Locksley’s Terps vegetarian for the past two seasons. It’s beyond time for the Terps under Mike Locksley to prove they can sit at the grown-up table.
Since beating Auburn, 31-13, in the Music City Bowl in 2003 for a school-record third straight bowl win, Maryland’s last 10 wins have come against UConn, Virginia, Villanova, Southern Cal, Florida Atlantic, Northern Illinois, Towson, Wisconsin, Hampton and UConn, with the only conference wins in two years being USC and Wisconsin.
Conference play begins this week as resurgent UCLA, coached by first-year coach Bob Chesney, visits College Park, so it’s time for the Terps to start producing some meat on their schedule because they’ve already laid too many eggs.
Everyone understands this is a critical year for Locksley. Nobody wants to see him fail. In fact, everyone wants to see him succeed, as the Maryland athletic department raised record money ($43.7 million) to give him a better chance in the Daddy Warbucks Big Ten.
Though it might not be fair for back to back 4-8 seasons to erase all memory of three consecutive bowl-winning seasons, this is the world we live in and, as Hyman Roth would say, this is the business Michael Locksley has chosen.
Granted, Virginia Tech was not a conference game, but it was the early-season marquee matchup before conference play, played on prime-time national TV in front of a sellout home crowd, venues Maryland has not thrived in under Locksley, which isn’t good when you’re trying to get tons more money from new and influential boosters, who are drawn to such shiny objects.
To athletic director Jim Smith’s credit, Maryland has sold out four of its last seven home games, but have lost all four.
After eight years, Mike Locksley is still searching for a huge win, but he’s now most certainly on a running clock. Back-to-back losses to coaches in their first year rebuilding programs would make that clock run even faster.
As for the Commanders? Would someone please tell head coach Dan Quinn that it’s okay to take three free points at the end of the half on fourth down no matter what his analytics card tells him, and that he’s too damn old to be wearing his hat backwards.
Mike Burke writes about sports and other stuff for Allegany Communications. He began. covering sports for the Prince George’s Sentinel in 1981 and joined the Cumberland Times-News sports staff in 1984, serving as sports editor for over 30 years. Contact him at mikeburke934@gmail.com. Follow him on X @MikeBurkeMDT