Formalities aside, it boiled down to a straightforward question.
Six months into his full-time role to helm University of Maryland athletics, Damon Evans had zeroed in on Mike Locksley, and Locksley, favored son in the DMV and having logged the work at defending national champion Alabama to win the 2018 Broyles Award as college football’s top assistant, had worked decades for an opportunity to sit atop the Terps’ football program – Locksley’s childhood team.
“I asked him a very poignant question: ‘We’re going to take on water, and it’s going to be a tough job the first two or three years,’” Locksley told FootballScoop of that late-fall 2018 conversation with Evans. “And this is before knowing the (COVID-19) pandemic was coming. But I said, ‘We’re going to be bringing in the right kind of kids. What were the issues within the program, and when we face tough times, are you going to have my back?’
“Too many times, and I’ve been in this long enough, at New Mexico, at times I felt on an island by myself dealing with issues that we inherited or things I had no control over. And my inexperience as a head coach, I created some of my own issues with my youthfulness and not knowing. So, I said, ‘When we face tough times, are you going to be back-to-back with me or am I going to be on an island by myself.’ I believed him.”
Evans had done his homework; made the requisite calls throughout college football to confirm what Evans felt he already had learned about Locksley: Much as Evans had clawed his way back atop a major-college athletics program after life’s roadblocks had forced his resignation as Georgia's athletics director, Locksley similarly had traversed an arduous path to be positioned for a similar tale of redemption.
On the heels of a 2-26 stint as New Mexico's head coach, Locksley had spent almost a decade back at Maryland, as offensive coordinator, briefly interim coach, and then burnished his comeback tour with a trio of seasons under Nick Saban at Alabama.
“The good thing about Locks, first and foremost, I saw in him someone who had really gone out to make sure he rebuilt his reputation as a coach, because he had a tough stint out at New Mexico,” Evans told FootballScoop. “I felt he had learned, he and I talked, he had learned from that job, and he said what he would do differently and how we would get better. I saw from the time he was here and then went to Alabama, I could see the growth he had in his mindset and the confidence and what he wanted to do.
“Obviously, he had the coaching acumen; he had just won the Broyles Award. And he had been through a lot. Some people wake up on third base, and he had to wake up and make his away around all the bases. Sometimes it was difficult to get to a base, sometimes you get thrown out. He kept finding a way to make it around the bases.”
Baseball metaphors aside, the pitch for Maryland this week is a simple one: The Terps are undefeated, off to their best start since 2001, and they embrace an opportunity to do something the program has not done in 73 years – knock off a top-five opponent, No.4 Ohio State, on the road.
"It's very exciting,” junior wideout Tai Felton, whose three first-half touchdowns in last week’s win against Indiana set a school record as part of the Terps’ Big Ten-best offense, said of the team’s roaring start to the season. "The most exciting part is that when Locks was recruiting me, he had a blueprint for how my years here were going to go.
“He said we were going to keep winning as we keep going. Seeing that come to fruition is very exciting, but we know that this is not the final destination. We still have more work to do."
In alignment and unity coveted but seldom actualized in college athletics, Evans and Locksley have positioned Maryland both for this moment and the opportunity for ongoing, sustained success.
The Terps have won seven consecutive games dating to last season and 15 of their past 20. They have the nation’s No. 15 scoring offense (38.6 ppg) and its No. 16 scoring defense (13.20).
Win this week and they’ll also likely have a bona fide Heisman Trophy candidate in record-setting quarterback Taulia Tagovailoa, brother of Alabama’s former Heisman-runner up signal-caller, Tua. A linchpin player in this Terps rebuild whose belief in Locksley, who had helped recruit him to the Crimson Tide, Taulia transferred from Alabama to Maryland after the 2019 season.
Belief has been bedrock since Locksley returned.
So, too, has coach and athletics director’s shared sheer iron-willed approach to enrapture the DMV – District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia – for “One Maryland” with success borne of men bent on having seized and soared with their respective second chances.
“I think it’s really important because there’s no testimony without going through the test,” Locksley said of his everyday example of life’s second chances. “Both Damon and I have been through the tests. It’s helped me a bunch with how I deal with players and in our program. I spent time at Alabama, and I heard Coach (Nick) Saban address how many times media, boosters, supporters ready to cut a guy off.
“And I learned more in the two years and four games I got to lead New Mexico than in three years at Alabama because you learn more from failures. To have that ability to convey it, I don’t tuck it, I don’t hide it; you don’t hear me pretend it didn’t happen or blaming New Mexico.”
Rather, Locksley has spirited the Terps to 20 wins since the 2021 season kicked off, consecutive bowl victories and leaned into his dream job with an unflinching zeal that’s helped him embrace things such as Maryland’s innovative "Hear The Terps” podcast and other exclusive school multimedia content.
Locksley has publicly and pointedly thanked Evans for the risk Evans took when he hired “a former failed football coach,” as Locksley said after Maryland throttled Indiana last week.
“I believe in second chances,” Evans told FootballScoop. “One of the great things about the United States of America is the opportunity to give second chances. To look at a person and say, ‘Did they earn it?’ There’s no doubt in my mind Coach Locksley earned it and deserved it.
“We all have our own failures -- I have mine I’ve had to learn from, and if you learn from mistakes and find a way to get better, that’s exactly what Locks did. I’m thrilled to be able to work with a guy at place he calls his dream job. Locks is not like your typical head coach who’s standoffish; Locks embraces everything we do around here from men’s basketball to women’s basketball to lacrosse, talking to staff and showing up and being an inclusive individual. I was excited I was in a position to be able to play a part in his second second chance -- some might call it his revival.”
The goal, Locksley explains, is to perpetuate revival into renaissance.
“When you look at University of Maryland sports, we win national championships in lacrosse, field hockey, men’s soccer, men’s and women’s basketball have been good for so long,” Locksley said. “We’ve kind of been the black sheep of the family, per se. It’s only right I embrace and take that and run with it as much as I can."
Back-to-back; second chances, without second guesses.
“It’s all about Maryland," Locksley emphasized. "Not Maryland football or just one sport. It’s, to me, what Damon is trying to do, tie it all together. And we’re only as good as we all are together.”