Maryland football has hired Gattis, who coached alongside Locksley at Alabama, as its new offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach, a team spokesperson told The Baltimore Sun.
The hiring could be seen as a burying of the hatchet for the former Crimson Tide assistants, who publicly took jabs at each other in 2019 after sharing the offensive coordinator title at Alabama in 2018. Gattis was originally expected to join Locksley’s staff at Maryland after the 2018 campaign, but he decided instead to take the offensive coordinator job at Michigan, where he spent three seasons and won the Broyles Award in 2021 as the nation’s top assistant.
Before the 2019 season, Gattis told reporters that he had a “tremendous amount of respect” for Locksley, but added a comment that suggested Gattis felt he deserved more credit for Alabama’s offensive success. Locksley was the Crimson Tide’s play-caller, while Gattis created game plans.
“Mike Locksley can say I watched him call every play, but ask him where the game plans usually came from,” Gattis said, per the Detroit Free Press. “So I’m fine with that. He did call every play, and I’ve got a notebook upstairs with all the game plans written down in them.”
Former Miami OC Josh Gattis hired as Maryland’s OC/QB coach & Texas State DC Zac Spavital named Terps’ safeties coach
— Brett McMurphy (@Brett_McMurphy) March 9, 2023
It appears Mike Locksley has hired former Michigan and Miami offensive coordinator Josh Gattis — the Frank Broyles Award winner two years ago — as his offensive coordinator, burying the public beef between the two former Alabama colleagues:https://t.co/s77pDPZbX4
— Jeff Ermann (@Jeff_Ermann) March 3, 2023