Maryland completed its football practice season Saturday afternoon with a “spring showcase,” joining a growing trend of schools across the country dispensing with an intrasquad game to close spring ball.
“I thought it was more important for us to get the work done we needed to earlier. The spring game, for us right now, the importance was to have the interaction to make sure Maryland Day being the point of emphasis, you know, open house for this beautiful campus,” Maryland coach Mike Locksley said. “A little bit of football, but a lot of interaction [with] what I feel would be a really good team.”
The 15th and final allowed practice of the spring was usually reserved for the Red-White Game, featuring Maryland’s first- and second-string offense and defense facing off. Much like everything else in college football, change is now a constant, and Locksley wanted to adjust his approach while drawing inspiration from college basketball’s “Midnight Madness” festivities.
“This was a vision I had, because once I knew we weren’t going to play a game I thought it was important for us to do some football. I thought it was even more important for us to reintroduce the team,” Locksley said. “And as I have gotten older and a little wiser, it’s about them, not about me, which is why I like saying the players kind of led today, and that’s what I thought we got.”
The only football action of the day lasted about 45 minutes, with seven-on-seven offensive sessions featuring just skill players while offensive and defensive lineman held their own drills simultaneously at the other end of the field.
“We got a lot of really good practices in, really a lot of physical, good stuff that we had throughout the week,” said quarterback Malik Washington. “This is a way, you know, to give back to the people that pour into us.”
More important than the retooled format, Washington said, was approaching the spring with a different attitude after a 4-8 season where Maryland didn’t win a game after September.
“I think we’re just having a lot of fun with it. It’s a lot of smiles going around,” he said. “There was some gray area coming into the offseason about what was going to go on. We had our plan, we set our standard, and now we’re going with it.”
The Terrapins headed into the locker room following the practice period and came back out without pads as the team leaned into embracing the campuswide Maryland Day festival that has historically been held alongside the spring game.
“I love it, personally,” said tight end Preston Howard, who’s back with the Terrapins after spending last season at Auburn. “I’m an older guy. I’ve been here for my fifth year, and I just feel like the camaraderie you have with not practicing, I feel like it just brings us forward to summer and to get to the work in summer more.”
“I like it like this, because think about it like this: When we get down to November and late October, how you think our body’s gonna feel?” added receiver Chris Durr Jr., who transferred in from Wyoming. “Gonna be a lot of wear and tear. So they’re just doing a good job of saving our body, saving our legs to get prepared for the season.”
The rest of the lighthearted proceedings featured a youth flag football game, Maryland’s position groups introducing themselves to the crowd and even allowing select fans to race players in a 40-yard dash and catch punts.
“It’s fun. It’s interactive,” Washington said. “It makes some people, it gives them a new outlook on it — how difficult it can actually be sometimes.”
Maryland will reconvene for training camp in early August before beginning the eighth and most consequential season of Locksley’s tenure Sept. 5 against Hampton.
• George Gerbo can be reached at ggerbo@washingtontimes.com.
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