Jake Nazar has a broad knowledge base in the world of sports — pro and college, SEC and Big Ten, team sports and solo-athlete sports such as tennis. He studies extensively and always has something interesting to say. Jake follows the LSU and Maryland programs very closely. I asked him to discuss Maryland football in the 2020s.
Here is what Jake Nazar had to say:
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I’d say the biggest question is whether it’s possible for Maryland to be successful — success being defined as a consistent 7-8 win program that finishes fourth or fifth in the division, and able to pull off a marquee upset over one of OSU/UM/PSU every four years or so (one senior class) — while running a conventional program.
Mike Locksley got hired with the idea they’d run a conventional program, one molded off what he learned at Alabama, that lands big-time recruits from their home base in the DMV and puts together a top-25 talent level, one not at the level of the best teams in their division but that can still get lots of blue chips.
So far, call that a half success. Rakim Jarrett, a 5-star from D.C., flipped from LSU on Signing Day and they finished in the Top 30 in the recruiting rankings. Things will need to improve on that front, but considering where the program’s been lately, I’ll take it.
So the question is, can Maryland be successful doing this? Can running a program that doesn’t try to go out of the ordinary, to run a different, unique offense, but tries to kill it in recruiting, win 7-8 games in a division with Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State? So far, it hasn’t. There have been a lot of mitigating factors there — continued horrendous injury luck with QBs, D.J. Durkin’s aborted tenure as head coach that resulted in an unforgivable tragedy — but nonetheless it hasn’t.
If Locksley cannot be successful with this blueprint, Maryland will have had three coaches fail in the Big Ten, including one who is seen as the one guy who could truly tilt the scales in recruiting in the DMV to Maryland’s favor. If Locksley can’t bring in the guys, who can? That, to me, would necessitate Maryland to seriously consider going to the triple option or an extreme, Mike Leach-ian air raid. They would really need to specialize and decide to be the most unconventional P-5 program of its stature (no one in the P-5 is now running the option). I think Locksley needs three more years before we know for sure whether it’ll work, so it’ll be by 2023 before this question is answered, but that’s the big question for me.
— Jake Nazar