COLLEGE PARK — On the day Maryland football showed off a new look following the end of the Taulia Tagovailoa era, Mike Locksley did the same Wednesday morning.

The sixth-year coach shed more than 60 pounds from his 6-foot-3 frame during the offseason. Without disclosing his current weight or his projected goal, Locksley, 54, credited team physician Dr. Yvette Rooks with crafting a plan for him.

“We talk about sacrifice, and I’ve sacrificed, saying I don’t have time because all I wanted to do was ball up,” he said. “Well, I’m being a little selfish. I do therapy once a week, I get massages. I’m a complete makeover of who I am.”

Locksley’s physical transformation mirrors the one his team has undergone since winning the Music City Bowl on Dec. 30. Gone are familiar faces such as Tagovailoa, wide receiver Jeshaun Jones, left tackle Delmar Glaze, cornerback Tarheeb Still and safety Beau Brade and the talent and stability they provided in helping the Terps win 23 games over the past three years and bowl games in each of those seasons.

The aforementioned players and others will be missed, but Locksley and several returning players vowed to continue the program’s success.

“I want us to dream big,” Locksley said. “You guys can make fun of me, you can talk trash if things don’t go well, but I can tell you that I’ve built my career and we’ve built this team understanding that setbacks, failures and adversity are part of the deal. That shouldn’t limit you with how you dream, and the desire for me is to win a national championship, and it starts by competing for Big Ten championships.”

Added fifth-year senior linebacker Ruben Hyppolite II: “We want to win, we want to win big, we want to win now, and we have the ability to do that. Our coach, he’s not afraid to dream big, and we’re not either.”

Locksley and his players might be a bit ambitious, but they have a backer in Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, who visited practice Wednesday afternoon to participate in a few drills and address the team.

“I just think he’s a winner,” Moore said of Locksley, who gifted the former Johns Hopkins wide receiver a framed No. 63 jersey — honoring his title as the 63rd Governor of Maryland — and a game ball. “He’s got a winning mentality, and you see the way the team is out here working. They’re working like they want it, and I’m just a big believer in that. The people who are willing to work are the people who are willing to win.”

Turning that vision into reality will likely depend on the Terps deciding who will start at quarterback. Redshirt junior Billy Edwards Jr. is considered the incumbent because of his familiarity in the offensive system as Tagovailoa’s backup and his Most Valuable Player showing (176 combined yards and two total touchdowns) in last year’s 31-13 romp over Auburn at the Music City Bowl.

But Edwards’ grip on the position isn’t airtight, and North Carolina State transfer M.J. Morris, a redshirt sophomore who totaled 1,367 passing yards and 14 touchdowns and 103 rushing yards and a score in two years, looms as his biggest competitor. Redshirt sophomore Cameron Edge flashed a bit during the bowl win (4-for-6 passing for 82 yards and one touchdown), and sophomores Champ Long and Jayden Sauray have not been ruled out.

Whoever emerges as the starter will be complemented by redshirt junior running back Roman Hemby, who slipped from 1,287 scrimmage yards in 2022 to 1,029 yards in 2023 as he became an afterthought during Tagovailoa’s record-setting passing campaign, and senior Colby McDonald (5.8 yards per carry).

The wide receiving corps is headed by seniors Tai Felton (48 catches for 723 yards and six touchdowns) and Kaden Prather (42 receptions for 666 yards and five touchdowns). Redshirt sophomore and McDonogh graduate Preston Howard (13 catches for 160 yards and one touchdown) and sophomore Dylan Wade (four receptions for 21 yards and two touchdowns) will try to bolster a tight end position that lost redshirt senior Corey Dyches (49 catches for 491 yards and two touchdowns) to California and sophomore Rico Walker (four receptions for 27 yards) to Auburn.

In addition to Morris, the offense welcomed redshirt senior center Josh Kaltenberger from Purdue, redshirt sophomore guard Aliou Bah from Georgia and junior tackle Alan Herron from Division II Shorter. They join an offensive line that returns redshirt junior Kyle Long (six starts at right guard) and redshirt senior Conor Fagan (three starts at right tackle and one at left guard).

The defense returns seven starters, including five in the front seven. Senior defensive end Donnell Brown (29 tackles, three sacks and two interceptions) joins a line anchored by redshirt senior defensive end Quashon Fuller (25 tackles and three sacks) and senior defensive tackle Tommy Akingbesote (28 tackles and one sack), and Hyppolite (66 tackles and one sack) and junior Kellan Wyatt (34 tackles and 4 1/2 sacks) will line up at linebacker.

Locksley acknowledged that the team will lean on the defense to set the tone early, which Wyatt welcomed.

“The defense is going to pick up some slack because we have seven returning starters,” the Glen Burnie resident and Archbishop Spalding graduate said. “It’s kind of our job to motivate the young guys and transfers that you can play, and we’re going to play a high level of football every time.”

Whether that translates into success in a reconfigured Big Ten that added Oregon, UCLA, USC and Washington from the Pac-12 is a mystery. Although Maryland was voted to finish 11th of 18 teams by the media that covers the conference, players such as Hemby remain undaunted.

“I feel like we expect to do great things,” the Edgewood and John Carroll graduate said. “We always talk about setting big goals and trying to achieve them, and I think our big goal is to continue on our fight to win the Big Ten.”