Maryland’s offensive line has plenty of familiar faces back in the room, but the guy holding the whole operation together is still Michael Hershey.
The returning starter at center has gone from a true freshman getting his feet wet in six games to the steady voice in the middle of a unit that gave up just nine sacks last season. That jump didn’t happen by accident. Hershey took over in 2025 and started all 12 games, giving Maryland a reliable anchor while quarterback Malik Washington’s mobility and pocket feel helped the pass protection hold up.
Now Hershey is drawing more attention beyond College Park. The Athletic ranked him as the eighth-best draft-eligible center in the spring, and Mike Locksley didn’t exactly shy away from the praise at Big Ten Media Day.
“[Hershey] will be a guy that by the end of the year, that people will know the name, Michael Hershey,” Locksley said at Big Ten Media Day. “Super smart, tough, reliable.
As you know, the center position is kind of the escort, the Secret Service for the quarterback and how he gets the lines all set up. And Hershey’s one of those smart, tough, reliable players.”
That kind of talk is nice, but Hershey says his focus stays on the work.
"I'm not big into looking at that. As coach Locks says: it's not about the talk, it's about the work and it's the results at the end of the day. Are you winning or not and are you performing?"
At 6-foot-5 and 295 pounds, Hershey said the biggest growth has come from the game slowing down for him. After a sophomore season that gave him confidence, spring ball brought even more progress in the mental side of the position.
“It's just the game slowing down, and be able to go out there and pick apart these defenses piece by piece, and hone in on the small things, it definitely helps my game a lot,” Hershey said.
He’s one of three returning starters on the line, and Maryland’s biggest target up front is clear: run the ball better. The Terps ranked 88th in yards per carry and 124th nationally in rushing yards per game in 2025, even with Pep Hamilton in place to help reshape the ground game.
With Clint Trickett now installing a system that Locksley said is the one “Malik [Washington] was recruited to play in,” the offseason has been all about building a more balanced offense.
“You see Coach Trickett’s background, you see he runs the ball a lot more and that can tell something right away,” Hershey said. “Last year we may not have been so efficient running the ball, but this year, we're definitely attacking that and going after our weaknesses in the run game, so you'll definitely see a different offense coming here. We've been stressing it the whole offseason, and we've just been going over and over day day in and day out, and the guys have really been buying into it, so we're feeling confident going into this training camp.”
For Hershey, the next step is about more than just being dependable. Maryland already sees him as the centerpiece of the line, and Locksley’s belief is that the rest of the country is about to catch up.
In Other News...
Maryland Defense Is Giving Terps Fans Real Reason To Believe
Marylands defense gave Terps fans something real to hang onto during the 2025 season, especially in the early going under second-year coordinator Ted Monachino. The unit came out fast, stayed physical and kept opponents under 20 points in each of its first four games while also showing up near the top of the Big Ten in turnovers, a sign that the structure and aggressiveness Monachino wanted were taking hold.
Senior linebacker Daniel Wingate made sure to point that out at the 2026 Big Ten Media Days, praising the defenses fast, physical identity and the way it had started to come together. The bigger question for Maryland is whether that early promise can hold up over the grind of a full season, because while the Terps flashed real potential, there were also stretches later in the year when opponents were able to lean on the run game and test the group in ways it did not always answer cleanly. [Read more 🡒]
Maryland-Area Standout Just Put Herself In Rare Wrestling Company
Taina Fernandez has been carving out a place in Maryland wrestling history for a while, but her latest trip abroad pushed her into rarer air. The Archbishop Spalding standout captured her third straight U17 World freestyle wrestling title at the National Gymnastics Arena in Baku, Azerbaijan, while also helping Team USA claim the U17 womens team championship.
Fernandez did it in emphatic fashion, pinning every opponent on her way through the bracket, and the result put her in a class all her own as the first non-Japanese female wrestler to complete that three-peat. Next up is a jump to the U20 World Championships in Slovakia, where Maryland-area fans will get another chance to see how far her rise can go. [Read more 🡒]