How good is the Maryland football coaching job? Sizing up the first vacancy of the season New York Times (Online) Chris Vannini The Mike Locksley era at Maryland is over. Locksley was fired Wednesday , days after a 37-30 home loss to Rutgers dropped the Terrapins to 2-5 on the year. Locksley finished with a 38-49 record over eight seasons (not including an interim stint in 2015). He reached three consecutive bowl games and posted consecutive eight-win seasons from 2021 to '23, but he oversaw four losing seasons and was off to a difficult start this year. He finished 16-47 in Big Ten play. Maryland's decade-plus in the Big Ten has brought very little football success. It's still near the bottom of the league hierarchy. So how good is the Maryland job? What names could get in the mix? Based on conversations with industry sources, here is a report card for the job and the potential candidates to watch. Maryland is historically a middling program with spurts of success. It was a top ACC program 25 years ago, winning the league in 2001 as part of three straight top-20 AP poll finishes. But head coach Ralph Friedgen was fired at the end of a 9-4 season in 2010, and the Terps haven't won nine games or posted a winning conference record since then. Under Locksley, the team became known for strong September starts followed by a midseason collapses: Locksley's teams were 7-19 in October. Rebuilding trust within the fanbase will take time. While Locksley proved he could get solid high school recruits to College Park, depth of talent has been an issue. Maryland is 51st nationally in 247Sports' Team Talent Composite, which assesses roster strength based on high school player ratings, and ranks 15th in the Big Ten. The Terps have some potential high-level talent. Sophomore quarterback Malik Washington, a former four-star recruit, has looked good at times. Five-star linebacker Zion Elee is a freshman. They could be pieces of a new era, but as with every college football team, it's unknown whether a new coach will be able to keep them. Maryland's estimated roster budget this season ranked on the high end of the bottom half of the Big Ten, according to The Athletic 's reporting . When it chose to keep Locksley a year ago, the school planned to put more money into the roster instead of directing it toward a coach buyout. That has not worked out. Now Locksley will be owed almost $10 million, half of which is due within 60 days and none of which is subject to offset from Locksley getting another job. Maryland was already at the bottom of the Big Ten in 2025 revenue, according to financial reports for the league's public schools . Athletic director Jim Smith has spent one year on the job. He came to Maryland from a senior vice president role with the Atlanta Braves. Before that, he worked at Ohio State, but not in athletics. So this will be his first major hire and big-time decision as an athletic director, making it difficult to predict which way things could go. This is also a school that lost basketball coach Kevin Willard to Villanova in 2025 after Willard spoke publicly about the athletic department's resource issues . That came right after former athletic director Damon Evans left for the same job at SMU. Here are potential names to keep an eye on: Memphis head coach Charles Huff: He's a Maryland native with a long track record of recruiting the DMV area, and he spent one season on the Terps staff. Huff has a winning track record as a head coach. He took Marshall to four bowl games in four seasons and won the Sun Belt in 2024. After an odd breakup , he took over a one-win Southern Miss team and improved the Golden Eagles to 7-5. Now he's 5-2 in his first year at Memphis. That's a lot of movement, and perhaps Huff can afford to wait for a bigger Power 4 job given Memphis' resources, but his ties to the area could make for a fit. Wake Forest head coach Jake Dickert: He continues to do more with less, now 14-5 at Wake Forest despite having one of the least expensive rosters in the Power 4. That comes after a solid run at Washington State, where he took over the Cougars after Nick Rolovich's firing and kept them competitive after the Pac-12 crumbled. Dickert's teams punch above their weight class. Duke head coach Manny Diaz: Another coach who does a lot more with less, Diaz won the ACC last year and had Duke flirting with the top 25 this season with a 4-0 start, despite a roster budget also near the bottom of the Power 4. He could make six bowl games in six years as a head coach this season. Maryland has more money than Duke, but is it a better job or just in a more valuable conference? UNLV head coach Dan Mullen: Mullen, who was born in Pennsylvania, has won at a lot of different places. He took Mississippi State to a No. 1 ranking and an Orange Bowl, departing as the school's winningest coach. He took Florida to three consecutive New Year's Six bowls before getting fired at 5-6 in Year 4. Now he's at UNLV, where he took the Rebels to a Mountain West championship in his first season. Former LSU head coach Brian Kelly: A potential name to watch if the Rutgers job opens , Kelly has a long track record of success. Remember, he was 34-14 at LSU before his firing. The Massachusetts native has 35 years of head coaching experience with just two losing seasons across stints at Grand Valley State, Central Michigan, Cincinnati, Notre Dame and LSU. Kelly is owed a $54 million buyout from LSU, but he is required to seek coaching work to offset those payments, which could also make him a less expensive option. Miami (Fla.) offensive coordinator Shannon Dawson: Dawson led the No. 1 scoring offense in 2024 and helped turn quarterback Cam Ward into a No. 1 NFL Draft pick, then helped Miami reach last season's national championship game and has one of the top offenses again this fall. He spent 2011 to 2014 at West Virginia and has spent most of his career in the South. New Mexico head coach Jason Eck: He turned Idaho and then New Mexico into winners and is expected to be one of the most popular Group of 6 names in this cycle. The former Wisconsin player has spent most of his coaching career in the West or the Midwest, but Bob Chesney's success at UCLA shows that regional familiarity isn't a requirement for success. Western Michigan head coach Lance Taylor: Taylor won the MAC last year and has the Broncos off to a 5-1 start this season, including the controversial Hail Mary loss at Michigan. That's 15 wins in the last 17 WMU games. He's a rising star who previously coached at Louisville, Notre Dame, Stanford and in the NFL with the Carolina Panthers. Toledo head coach Mike Jacobs: He fits the Curt Cignetti mold of a head coach who has won at several stops, including D-II programs Notre Dame (Ohio) and Lenoir-Rhyne, Football Championship Subdivision school Mercer and now Toledo, where he's off to a 5-2 start. His .803 winning percentage puts him in the top five among active Division I and Division II head coaches. Ohio State defensive coordinator Matt Patricia: Patricia interviewed for the Penn State job in 2025, and the sense is he's not just looking to jump back to the NFL. He spent most of his NFL career in the Northeast, aside from a run as Detroit Lions head coach, and he has done a terrific job with the Ohio State defense. He's the highest-paid assistant coach in college football, making $3.75 million this year. Former Wake Forest head coach Dave Clawson: He stepped down at Wake Forest two years ago but didn't consider it a retirement. Clawson is now working as an ACC Network analyst but has expressed an openness to return to coaching. He reached the ACC Championship Game with Wake in 2021 amid a run of seven consecutive bowl games. That came after successful runs at Bowling Green, Richmond and Fordham. But his tenure in Winston-Salem ended with consecutive 4-8 seasons. Ohio State offensive coordinator Arthur Smith: The former Atlanta Falcons head coach was in the mix for the North Carolina job that went to Bill Belichick. The Ohio State offense was off to a hot start this year, but the injury to quarterback Julian Sayin could change the trajectory of the Buckeyes' season. The Tennessee native played at UNC and had spent almost all of his career in the NFL until this year. Indiana offensive coordinator Mike Shanahan and defensive coordinator Bryant Haines: Both are among the top coordinators in the country and received NFL coordinator and college head coaching interest a year ago. Haines won the Broyles Award as the nation's top assistant coach. They're also among the highest-paid assistants in the country and can be choosy, as the Hoosiers again look like one of the best teams in the country. It's a Big Ten job, which will always draw interest, and it's still located in a good area for recruiting talent. But success has been incredibly hard to come by, and the roster financing is just about average. There's potential here, but also a lower ceiling and a fanbase that needs proof of concept to believe. Keeping Malik Washington and a couple of other players may be a top priority for the next coach. The 2005 comedy Wedding Crashers once proclaimed, “Crabcakes and football, that's what Maryland does.” For two decades, there hasn't been much of the latter.