By his own admission during Big Ten Media Days today, Mike Locksley lost the Terps locker room last year.
“Coach Locks lost his locker room. We had haves and have nots for first time," Locksley shared, alluding to the NIL era creating a divide in the locker room, a move that everyone could saw coming but few had a structured plan for the volatile territory college football was welcoming.
The Terps finished last fall near the bottom of the Big Ten standings, ahead of only Purdue at 1-8 in league play and 4-8 overall.
So what did Locksley learn from that experience heading into his seventh season, sitting at 33-41 overall with his rebuild of the Terps?
"The landscape of college football taught me a valuable lesson - if I have to put my desk in the locker room, I will," he shared.
Taking that a step further, as a constant reminder of the environment they're trying to create at Maryland, Locksley and his staff decided to put a rather interesting sign outside the locker room.
That sign reads:
"You can leave your 'Louis' belts, your car keys and your financial statements outside those doors."
Like the approach or not, Locksley seems clearly determined to not repeat the same mistakes as last year.