Mike Locksley picked a spectacularly bad time to mock Nebraska’s home-field edge

What’s the term for not necessarily disagreeing with someone, but also thinking they were very dumb for saying something out loud? Mike Locksley might have added a new term to the American lexicon after what he said just ahead of his team’s showdown with Nebraska.

Locksley, who already came into Saturday on the hottest of hot seats, appeared on a podcast where he talked about how hard it is … or isn’t, as an opposing team at Memorial Stadium in Lincoln.

“Yeah, I mean it’s just one of those traditional, I always call them Blue Blood programs,” Locksley began when asked about Nebraska. “Their fans, they support it 24/7. I mean, they are there win, lose or draw.”

Sounds plenty complimentary, right? The Maryland head coach might have made best friends with the entire Cornhusker fanbase if he had stopped there. Most head coaches would. But Locksley has a habit of telling it like it is, and he also has a habit of sticking his foot in his mouth. This next part is where he said something that honest NU fans can’t really disagree with, but he still shouldn’t have said it out loud.

“Really, it’s a great venue to go play in,” Locksley continued, specifically talking about Memorial Stadium. “But it’s not one of those intimidating ones that gets super loud.”

Locksley obviously said more than that and was plenty complimentary about Nebraska at other points in the podcast, but that really didn’t matter once he uttered that line.

Both the official Nebraska football and Nebraska Huskers social media accounts immediately intercut Locksley’s comments with video of the fanbase in a packed Memorial Stadium, with captions meant to get everyone planning to go to the game on Saturday afternoon fired up.

The Maryland coach’s comments aren't “bulletin board” material for Nebraska, per se. After all, the comment wasn’t about the team or how easy it would be to beat them. It might have been better if it were. Nope, this comment was taken as a shot at the fans.

He really isn’t wrong. It’s been a long time since Memorial Stadium has been a place opposing teams fear to tread. There was a time when the Huskers simply didn’t lose at home, but that time was more than two decades ago.

The stadium can still get loud. The 2024 game against Colorado approached the decibel levels of old, at least at the start of the game. However, there have been plenty of games, especially in the last decade, where the venerable building has been too quiet.

The most recent case in point was Nebraska’s 2024 tilt against UCLA when the only comments about the crowd were that there was zero energy for reasons passing understanding. Nebraska lost that game 27-20, despite most feeling the Bruins were badly outmatched talent-wise.

In the past, this week’s game against Maryland is exactly the kind of game where the crowd wouldn’t be remotely intimidating. They’d go quiet the first time something didn’t go the Huskers’ way. Which is why Locksley’s comments are especially ill-timed.

The man is bringing his team into a hostile environment in what could be a must-win game for him, and he went out of his way to annoy the opposing fanbase. It was almost a dare to prove him wrong.

So what happens on Saturday? Does the Nebraska fanbase prove him wrong and bring back the noise levels of the 1990s? Or is he right and his Maryland team finds the road venue entirely unimpressive? It’s not very often that those sitting in Memorial Stadium seats can so directly contribute to an opposing coach eating crow. Is it on the menu?

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