Mike Locksley cleared out his office in College Park on Wednesday, the same day Maryland announced it was parting ways with him after a 2-5 start. In an interview with ESPN the following day, he named the problem that wore on him most across eight seasons as the Terrapins’ head coach, and it came from a part of the job most fans never see.
“The hardest thing I dealt with here was not recruiting players – it’s being able to get the right coaches and assistants with me. For whatever reason, I struggled to keep the really good coaches I had because we win, we were having success, and people come hire em. I was not able to keep consistency with the staff. And then NIL hit,” Locksley told ESPN.
He pointed to Scottie Montgomery, Jon Hoke and Dan Enos as examples of the assistants he could not hold onto. Maryland named co-defensive coordinator Aazaar Abdul-Rahim interim coach and opened a national search, with Locksley leaving at 39-54 overall.
Does the staff explanation hold up?
For the best stretch of his tenure, it does. Maryland won three straight bowl games from 2021 to 2023, and the 2022 team went 8-5 and beat NC State 16-12 in the Duke’s Mayo Bowl. By the end of that January, both of his offensive coordinators were gone. Co-coordinator Mike Miller left in December to run Charlotte’s offense, and Enos left in January 2023 to become Arkansas’ offensive coordinator. That is the exact cycle Locksley described, where winning turns a staff into a shopping list for other programs.
The other two names on his list left under different circumstances. Hoke and Montgomery were the coordinators on Locksley’s first staff, and both were gone after the 2020 season, which followed a 3-9 debut and a 2-3 pandemic-shortened year.
Hoke was reported to be headed to the Atlanta Falcons as defensive backs coach, and Montgomery joined the Indianapolis Colts as running backs coach. NFL teams hired both men, but neither departure followed a winning season in College Park.
Maryland went 4-8 in both 2024 and 2025 and is 10-21 since the start of 2024, including 2-20 in Big Ten play. The 37-30 home loss to Rutgers that preceded his exit was the program’s 12th straight conference defeat.
Locksley was candid about the cause well before this week. At Big Ten media days in July 2025, he described having to choose between paying incoming freshmen and taking care of veterans, which split his roster into players with money and players without.
“I own the fact that I lost my locker room,” Locksley said in comments reported by CBS Sports.
Staff turnover cost Locksley continuity, yet Maryland still won bowl games in the years it was losing coordinators. The NIL era arrived just as Maryland’s winning stopped, and the program never found its footing again.
Locksley said he will not pursue another college head coaching job. Maryland owes him a buyout of about $9.75 million with no offset, so the full amount is due even if he takes another position.
“I’m at peace with it because I know it’s better than what it was when I got here,” Locksley told ESPN.
He is looking instead at NFL roles or a coordinator job at a program that can compete for a championship. If he lands one, Locksley would be on the other side of the cycle he spent eight years fighting, as the assistant a winning program has to work to keep.
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