Mike Locksley has his Terps squad off to a 5-1 start at the halfway point of the season, dropping their first game of the year to Ohio State last weekend 37-17.
The game was a true tale of two halfs, as the Terps had the opportunity to take a lead into the first half with 12 seconds on the clock, but veteran quarterback Taulia Tagovailoa took a check down in the middle of the field that allowed the clock to run out tied up at 10 a piece.
Despite winning each of their previous five games by at least 18 points, Mike Locksley has been "nitpicky" of his squad finding a lot that needs to be fixed each week.
Asked about that nitpicky-ness by a reporter and if the loss to Ohio State validated Locksley's pursuit of perfect execution, especially looking at how the end of the half played out, Locks offered up an interesting answer.
"Eh...no it doesn't because we coach those things. Now it's a matter of continuing to coach them."
"I always say, there's nothing worse than when a coach says 'I've told them 100 times." Well I say what makes 100 the magic number? How about we tell them 101 times."
"Right? That's the same thing for me. Over the last two games, in the first half, when we have opportunities to score, these are situations that we literally have a Friday script that I stole this from old Uncle Nick at Alabama, where we're hitting these situations that come up."
"For the average fan, when you've got 12 seconds on the clock and no timeouts, sometimes you would check it down too, but we've been taught that a check down doesn't allow you to get the next play off, so let's either throw it for the end zone, or throw it out of bounds, and let's try to kick it."
"But it all happens in the heat of the moment. This is probably where I wouldn't be as fat as I am, and I'd probably have more hair if I didn't deal with the stressors that go with like an 18-22 year old controlling your livelihood. I love these kids man, and I'm going to go to battle with them every single day. They don't do it on purpose, so I will continue to coach them. Continue to try to be positive. I'll continue to - probably - nitpick."
Locksley goes on to share how a loss like last weekend's linger's a lot for him, because like all humans, he second guesses himself a lot and compares it to losing, and then finding a $100 bill in an interesting analogy.
"I've got to to try to enjoy winning more than I hate to lose, and if you can do that, it helps you to get through what I've kind of gone through the last 48 hours."
Hear more from Locksley in the clip.