LAS VEGAS — Maryland football coach Mike Locksley admitted Tuesday he “lost” the locker room in 2024 over which players to compensate, a factor that led to the Terrapins’ worst season since his debut in 2019.

The Terrapins finished 4-8 and dropped all but one of their Big Ten contests. Maryland had more players selected in the NFL draft (six) than wins, as it lost its final five games, all by 14 points or more. Locksley attributed part of the struggles to the changing financial landscape in college football, as Maryland had to make decisions on how to compensate players through NIL deals and ultimately created some divisions.

“I own the fact that I lost my locker room,” Locksley told ESPN. “And this is Coach Locks, the locker room king, telling you this landscape, I had to choose between paying young players who were coming in or reward the older players that have been through the fire, three bowl wins, and I tried to do both with limited resources. And that’s what you get: a locker room with the haves and have-nots.”

Locksley, who is entering his seventh season at Maryland and 10th overall as an FBS coach, called the experience “a valuable lesson” in how to manage players, relationships and expectations. Maryland won three consecutive bowl games under Locksley, from 2021 to 2023.

“You go outside my locker room 1753238805 and I have a sign that says: ‘Leave your Louis belts, leave your financial statements and your car keys outside of this locker room, because in here we’re all going to pay the same price for success or failure,'” he said. “If I’ve got to put my desk in that locker room, I will. A valuable lesson learned.”

Locksley said the House settlement and the money Maryland distributes to its players have allowed him to focus more on the locker room rather than external fundraising.

Maryland will enter the season with questions at quarterback — where UCLA transfer Justyn Martin, redshirt freshman Khristian Martin and decorated incoming freshman Malik Washington, ESPN’s No. 134 overall recruit, will compete — and other positions.

“I call this a year of vulnerability for me, because I’ve been torn about what to say about our team when people ask; but I don’t know what type of team we have yet,” he said. “Some people, as a coach, it’s like a bad thing to say, ‘I don’t know.’ But it’s a good thing that I don’t know.”

This offseason, LaNorris Sellers reportedly turned down an $8 million NIL deal to transfer away from South Carolina. Despite this, he’ll be suiting up for the Gamecocks in just over a month’s time.

When that report was released in June, it raised more than a few eyebrows. After all, this comes during an era in college football where money can lure anyone anywhere, Sellers’ decision boiled down to one simple reason.

“It’s close to home,” Sellers told Rob Stone, along with Mark Ingram and Urban Meyer on the Triple Option podcast. “My parents come to all my games. I still go home for holidays like Christmas, Thanksgiving and all that. If I ever need something, I can just shoot over the road (and go) home. If they want to just come up here, just get away from home, they can come to me. Being around all of my family, that’s all I need.”

The alleged interest from other programs comes as he shot up draft boards after the 2024 season. After one season as the Gamecocks’ starter, the potential is there and many experts believe that Sellers has all of the intangibles that NFL scouts look for in a potential first-round quarterback. In turn, all eyes will be on Sellers when South Carolina takes the field each weekend this fall.

After redshirting during his true freshman season in 2023, Sellers didn’t disappoint during his first campaign as the Gamecocks starting QB. In 2024, Sellers completed 65.6% of his passes for 2,534 yards and 18 touchdowns compared to seven interceptions. He also finished as South Carolina’s second-leading rusher on the team with 674 yards and seven touchdowns last season.

Now that he’ll likely be a Gamecock for life based on his early 2026 NFL Draft projections, it’s time for Sellers to work on the little things to fine tune his game before turning pro. It’s been up to him to address some of the weak spots in his game in the meantime.

“Small things like anticipation, footwork and all that,” Sellers said. “Just building off of mistakes from last year just trying to fix them to get better at it for this year.”

South Carolina’s season begins on Sunday, Aug. 31 against Virginia Tech for the Aflac Kickoff inside Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta. Sellers will have multiple opportunities to prove himself against elite competition with matchups against the likes of LSU, Alabama and Clemson down the stretch

This article originates on BruinReportOnline.com.

House plaintiff attorneys have reached a deal with the power conferences and NCAA officials that will alter the new enforcement arm, the College Sports Commission (CSC), relating to how NIL collectives can pay athletes, according to Yahoo! Sports.

House plaintiff co-counsel Jeffrey Kessler told On3 that he has “nothing to announce yet.” Multiple NIL collectives told On3 in the last week that they were actively speaking with lawyers about bringing suits forward against CSC and the NIL clearinghouse if changes were not made.

“Conversations with class counsel remain ongoing,” a CSC spokesperson told On3. “A formal statement will be issued when the issue has been resolved.”

As part of the agreement, the College Sports Commission is expected to treat collectives or any “school-associated entity” in a similar fashion as other businesses when determining the legitimacy of third-party NIL deals submitted to the CSC’s NIL Go clearinghouse, according to Yahoo.

The CSC recently laid out a firm approach to how it plans to handle booster-funded NIL collective deals. The key goal behind the House v. NCAA settlement was to shift the flow of dollars to athletes from collectives to institutions. Kessler and his other co-counsel, Steve Berman, wrote a letter to the power conferences and NCAA officials earlier this month that the NCAA and conferences “retract” the guidance.

“Lawsuits are about to come,” a source previously told On3 if guidance was not altered. “If they had not come out and said something on Friday, we probably would have already filed something.”

On3 reported this month that the NIL clearinghouse is facing lengthy delays. An SEC NIL collective told On3 that it submitted a deal 14 days ago with multiple deliverables for an event. With the clearinghouse’s delay, the event that the football player was supposed to execute has since passed. One source told On3 that a booster-driven Big Ten collective deal has been waiting 19 days for the clearinghouse’s response on a six-figure deal.

“Let me be clear – college athletics is not broken, but it is strained,” SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said last week.

Multiple NIL collectives recently told On3 that head coaches were asking questions about how payments will get to athletes with NIL clearinghouse delays. Athletes are required to submit deals for a “fair‑market‑value evaluation” within five business days of execution. But delays have led to booster-backed collectives waiting over 20 days, in some instances.

Sources speculated that some schools will start paying players under the table – a fear many have openly discussed in recent months as the House settlement was finalized.

“We were already talking to an attorney,” an NIL collective leader said. “And then Friday, Kessler and Berman came out and reprimanded the NCAA and CSC about the guidance. Who are they to determine what a valid business purpose is? If they really want this thing to work, they need to approve more than they deny. They need to give everybody some grace and not be iron-fisted.

“Not to say the quiet part out loud that we’re trying to kill collectives. They just provided the opening statement for the first lawsuit against them. That you’re going to treat people differently. Or people are going to start paying under the table, or kids aren’t going to submit deals.”

GREG SCHIANO: I first want to thank Commissioner Petitti for everything he does for our league. This has been the most transformational time in college athletics maybe in the history of college athletics. I feel very confident in our leader in how he handles our business as a conference.

I would also like to welcome our president. We have a new president, William Tate, who has come to join us from LSU. Very excited about that. I had a chance to meet with him. He had a chance to address our football team, and it was great, and can’t wait to work together with him.

I want to thank our board chair, Amy Towers, for her tireless work in making sure that we have a president who is going to do a great job for our university.

Today we bring three great representatives of our football program. Athan Kaliakmanis, our quarterback, who has transferred in and has become literally the leader of our program. This is definitely his football team.

Wide receiver Ian Strong, who I think has just grown consistently since he arrived. This will be his third season with us, and he is I think an excellent football player and a great young man.

Then linebacker DJ Djabome, who is from Canada, came down. Great story. DJ came down to go to one of our football camps and drove down from upstate New York and didn’t have a hotel room. He, his coach, and two teammates slept in a car in late July. He went through our camp and did a great job.

We offered him. We brought his family down on a visit immediately, and he started with us in training camp a couple of weeks later. Now to be standing here at Big Ten Media Days and DJ will be representing us, it’s a great story. Excellent football player and even better young man.

Those guys, thrilled to bring them out here to represent our team and our program.

I would also like to thank our coaching staff. Really I’m indebted to them. They do an unbelievable job. Kirk Ciarrocca, our offensive coordinator, who is going into his third season, has done an unbelievable job leading our offensive staff. I would like to welcome Robb Smith back to Rutgers. He and Zach Sparber will be co-coordinators on defense and have done a great job getting everybody up to speed this spring and summer. Then Eddie Allen, who handles our special teams, does a great job. Leading our staffs and them leading our players.

Also, in this new day of college football, I would like to recognize, we have two assistant GMs. Assistant GM for finance is Jordan Wolkstein, who has done an incredible job putting all the financial end of things together. Then our assistant GM for personnel, Eric Josephs, who has been in that role with personnel since we arrived but now has additional responsibilities. Can’t thank them enough.

Again, after all the changes that are going on in college football, it still comes down to a few things: Getting prepared, being tough, and then go putting it on tape. That’s what this team I think has done a great job of doing so far in this offseason in summer, and I can’t wait to coach them.

This will be my 37th year coaching. I’ve never been more excited about doing it. I feel like I did when I was 25, and can’t wait to get this thing underway.

With that, I’ll open it up for any questions.

Q. Rutgers returned to bowl contention in 2024 with disciplined defense and ball security principles with just two fumbles and seven interceptions all season. With some returning starters and a sharper focus on creating takeaways, what specific areas are you targeting this offseason to push the program from good to constantly elite?

GREG SCHIANO: Well, that’s a great question. For sure the ball is the program at our place. There’s a huge amount of emphasis on that.

We came back to Rutgers. This will be our sixth season back. We were dead last and we could hardly see it from there. It was a tough start, but we’ve kind of step by step climbed our way to the middle of the league. I didn’t come back to do that. I came back to win the championship. That may sound funny to some that have followed college football, but that’s what we’re going to do.

I can’t tell you when that’s going to happen, but that’s why we’re back. I have the staff to do it. We’re constantly getting better and better players, and we’re constantly growing as a program.

Our fan base is growing. All the things that you need to climb the ladder, and that’s what we do. We just come in every day and try to get a little bit better. Can’t have any backslides. Have to keep getting better and better, and eventually you’ll get there. That’s really what we focus on.

Q. Obviously rebuilding the program. You talked last year about winning the state back and recruiting. Obviously the transfer portal is a huge factor. Losing guys, you lose your all-time — one of the best rushers in school history to the NFL. How did you kind of navigate NIL and the portal and all those different things to field the roster that you have right now?

GREG SCHIANO: That’s another great question because it’s certainly been the focus of college football, right? NIL, revenue share, all those things, it still comes down to finding the right fit for your program. What is fit? Fit is culture. Fit is athletic ability. Fit is student-athlete. What kind of student, can he fit in, do the work in the classroom? That’s always going our primary focus. Do I wish we had some more money when the NIL stuff was going on? Absolutely. Who doesn’t?

At the end of the day, players and families are going to entrust us with their sons. If they know they’re going to be treated well, they’re going to develop not only on the field, but off the field. That’s what we can promise.

I can’t tell them if they’re going to start. I always tell players. You know, where do you see me? Well, a year from now I see you being the guy that’s on our team. If I’m promising someone else at that time that they can come in and start, how does that make you feel? You come in and earn it at Rutgers. Everything is earned. Nothing is given. I think we have a bunch of guys, a team full of those guys, that understand that and that do that every day.

We have to be very, very careful when we go into the portal at a place like Rutgers. You need to make sure your culture is the driving force. If we’re going to bring a guy in from the transfer portal, not only does he have to be able to help us right now, but he has to be a cultural fit because if you are recruiting the good players in the transfer portal, they’re going to help you; but if they help you and they’re not a cultural fit, they’re going to lead people in the wrong direction, and we can’t have that.

I think our staff and the people I mentioned, Eric Josephs, Jordan Wolkstein, our whole coaching staff have done a great job identifying the players that are a great fit for our football program, and I feel very confident in the guys we got in the portal. I feel really good about the guys we’ve recruited, and I feel really, really good about the guys that are in our program.

That’s the mission, to keep upgrading little by little, net upgrades, until you have a championship football team.

Q. You being, like, a veteran coach, being around for years, like you said, what’s your thoughts on college football, with the salary cap, with the revenue sharing and everything? What’s your thoughts on that?

GREG SCHIANO: Look, I think college football is in a great place, and I know a lot of people like to moan and groan about things that are different. We need to just let things settle down and figure out if what we’ve done, what the court system has done, is it going to allow us to kind of find a level where we can go out and perform, where we can go out and have the kind of teams and programs and leagues that we want to have?

I think tweaking things too early — let’s see how it works out right now. We did a lot. Let’s settle down and see how this works. I know with the CSC there’s a lot of things that are talked about. All those things are great, and they need to be taken care of. I forever have believed that players should be paid. I always felt it was an injustice that players didn’t receive some form of compensation, whether it was a stipend or whatever it would be.

I’m thrilled where we are right now. I think that there needs to be some fine-tuning, but not major changes right now. Let’s see if this will work, and if it doesn’t, then a couple of years from now let’s change it, then. I do. I think college football is still incredibly popular. The fans love it. The players love it. The coaches love it. I can’t wait to get started.

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