Syracuse Football: Mike Locksley isn’t your typical 1st year head coach

Syracuse football takes to the road in Week 2 vs Maryland. Despite playing a1st-year head coach, Mike Locksley is anything but normal for the Terps.

Syracuse football has known for months that they’d open with two straight road games to start the 2019 campaign. Week 1 at Liberty and Week 2 at Maryland.

This is the first time this phenomenon has occurred since 2010.

For any team, this would be a monumental task, but there was always one saving grace for the Orange: at least both programs would be operated by first-year head coaches.

In Week 1 the Orange faced Hugh Freeze. While certainly a big name who has a winning pedigree, but at the end of the day he’s still in his first year with the Flames. So in theory playing a first-year head coach in his first game would be a tactical advantage for the Orange and it was as they opened the season with a 24-0 victory.

While initially, it appeared Syracuse would face a similar task in Week 2, things aren’t always as they appear.

Technically speaking Mike Locksley is, in fact, a first-year head coach with the Maryland football program, but he isn’t your typical first-year head coach.

Locksley has been coaching football since 1992, which is over 27 years for those counting at home, and during that time (on and off) he spent a grand total of 10 years with the Maryland Terrapins as an assistant coach and even once as the interim head coach.

Mike knows Maryland.

He was born in the nation’s capital which is a nice 39-minute drive from College Park. This isn’t your typical first-year head coach.

The Orange won’t have the same advantage they did in Week 1 vs the Liberty Flames.

On The Manchild Show with Boy Green the Voice of the Terps Johnny Holliday spoke about Mike Locksley:

"“Mike is a hell of a recruiter. He’s got a tremendous connection with families and players. Mike isn’t a BS’er, he’s got this magical mystique about him. He’s also dealt with a lot of tragedy in his life he lost one of his boys to gun violence so he can connect with the families and also those at Maryland with the tragic death that shook this program last year. When he sits down with families, his conversations go above and beyond football. He always wanted to come back to Maryland to be the head coach, this was his ‘dream job’. Mike grew up here, went to high school here, and just knows the area. I haven’t seen excitement like this since Ralph Friedgen was here.”"

National pundits have long said that this Syracuse vs Maryland game has ‘trap’ written all over it. The Orange’s biggest game of its season comes Week 3 vs the Clemson Tigers.

Hopefully with the large point spread shift (Syracuse opened as a four-point favorite and now sit as a two-point underdog) and the 79-0 beatdown of Howard in Week 1 will keep the Orange focused on the task at hand at noon on Saturday vs the Terps.