While Maryland doesn’t play an in-state opponent like Towson this week, the ties with Charlotte run deep thanks to players and personnel.
Locksley has known Poggi since 1997 when he was a Terrapin assistant and recruited some of Poggi’s players, as well as through his son, Kai Locksley, who played at Gilman as a dual-threat quarterback. “I know he’ll have his team ready to come play up here. It’s a kind of a homecoming for him and some of the players on his roster when you look across and see the amount of guys that are there with him that he had in high school. And those guys were really good players, so we expect him to come up and and give us his best, and then he can expect to get ours,” Locksley said.
“It’s kind of hard for me,” Tagovailoa said of not wanting to waste a play. “Being very competitive, every play to us matters so much. When a play breaks down, you obviously want to be the problem solver to the play … it’s kind of a thing I’ve gotta manage.”