Mike Locksley Confident in Spring Season Despite Eligibility, Scholarship Limit Questions

Locksley talks about how the six opt-outs impact the new spring season while schools await clarity on eligibility from the NCAA

The Big Ten and Pac-12 remain the lone two Power Five conferences to cancel all fall sports while NCAA president Mark Emmert announced on Thursday there will be no fall championships with the exception for football. The disheartening news left hundreds of student-athletes and coaches scrambling to figure out new plans for the fall as the uncertainty continues.

Purdue head coach Jeff Brohm outlined an eight-game season beginning February 27 through April 17 with postseason play complete by May 15. The fall schedule has raised questions about turnaround time for athletes, but Brohm's proposed schedule features ten games beginning October 2 following a four-week training camp. The plan raised a wide array of responses, some advocating the plan shows a sound model for the Big Ten to move forward with a spring season while others highlighted player-safety concerns. Head coach Mike Locksley concluded his press conference on Thursday with confidence that a spring season is feasible.

“I've had a chance to be on lots of phone calls with coaches and AD’s here in the conference, and I do know that our coaches along with our athletic directors and administrators have been really creative in the thought process behind it,” Locksley said. “From the information that I've been able to take from these meetings, there's no doubt that you could play a winter/spring season, and still leave time for a long enough break. More than possibly six months for guys before we start the ‘21 season. I know the goal for us as coaches in the conference here, are to make the ‘21 season as normal as possible, and not have it kind of overlap and deal with starting late or not being able to finish, so I know a lot of thought has gone into it and there's still a working group within the Big Ten organization of putting together some infrastructures to see how we can best model this thing, but from the early things that we've been able to discuss I've been really pleased with knowing that it is definitely feasible to do it, while also keeping players’ safety and health in the forefront of it and not playing too many games in one calendar year. So I feel good about the way that infrastructure looks and I anticipate us being able to pull it off.”

Maryland was impacted by the opt-out policy as six student-athletes, including seniors Josh Jackson and Johnny Jordan, made the decision to sit out for the upcoming 2020 season. If Maryland returns in the spring, Locksley will move forward with his current roster.

“The way I see it, whether we were playing the season or not, the guys that have opted out chose to opt out to do the preseason workouts so that's not an area that I've thought about just yet, and obviously we'll handle a lot of them on a case by case basis. I know based off the guys and the ones that opted out some of them that I talked to played their last football and feel solid or very strongly about that so we'll manage and handle those on a case by case basis as we get more information, and I can bring a little more clarity as to what the fall looks like for us. How we're planning on preparing, what we'll be allowed to do to prepare and then put those out there for guys. There may be more guys that decide to opt out based on what we're allowed to do or not allowed to do, so again very fluid from that standpoint, we’ll monitor it and have them on individual basis”.

Eligibility concerns remain at the forefront of the discussion for the new proposed season as Locksley also added “everything eligibility-wise starts with the NCAA.” The Division I Council recommended an extra year of eligibility for impacted seniors this week with the vote expected to pass later this month, but scholarship limits have also been called into question if seniors are granted. Maryland is up to 19 commitments in the 2021 class but would exceed the current 85-man scholarship limit if seniors are granted an additional year. Locksley noted that concern as programs across the country await final word.

“We’re operating under the guide of what the rules we have are today. We’re actively recruiting our 2021 class. We’re off to a good start with it. Based on where we are today as a program, that’s really the only way you can operate because there are just so many dynamics and it's such a fluid situation on how it will play out. Again, just like I told our team we’ve got to be ready to adjust. I don’t foresee there being an issue with the recruiting process for our 2021’s. I think the big question mark will be from a fiscal standpoint; if the NCAA grants the extra year of eligibility if we were to not play. How does that work out for us here in the Maryland community? So for us we’re operating as if we’re going to play until I hear

different. Which means our seniors will be able to get their year in and be able to add to their resumes, whether it's academically or athletically and we’ll continue to move forward with bringing in a new class of players to help fill the void.”