By Jack Rothenberg
Season three of “Unlocked”, a Maryland football documentary series that gives fans a behind-the-scenes look at the program, has already begun and is going to look vastly different from seasons one and two. Haley Timple and Steven Jenkins shoot and produce the series, so I sat down with them to see what fans can expect for the upcoming season.
Season one was all about Coach Locksley in his first year with the program. Taking place in 2019, Locksley had just taken over and most episodes were interviews with past players and coaches validating the hire of Locksley and explaining why he was the right man for the job.
Season two was a mix between in-season episodes that followed the team during the week leading up to games and interviewing individual players to discover their personal stories. For example, episode four of season two featured then junior tight end Chigoziem Okonkwo and his battle with myocarditis which had sidelined him for the entire 2020 season.
This is Jenkins’ first season working on the “Unlocked” series. He said he’s watched both seasons one and two and knows how to tweak the series in order to make it a better fan experience.
“This year we’re trying to do the same thing[s from seasons one and two], but it’s going to be more behind the scenes footage. It’s going to be a little more Hard Knocksy instead of a 60 minutes feature story on a player,” Jenkins said.
Football fans love the NFL’s Hard Knocks show that gives them a look at a team’s training camp each year, and Jenkins, who has experience working with an NFL team, plans to create a similar series here at Maryland working alongside Timple.
Jenkins has done similar work at Alabama and with the newly named Washington Commanders. He won two Emmy awards while working in Washington.
Timple on the other hand has experience in College Park, having worked on the first two seasons of “Unlocked” which will help her shape season three and continue to improve the documentary. She has also been working on different projects involved with the TerrapinClub+ platform, which is an online streaming platform that features exclusive video content and programming across all Maryland sports teams that started in 2020.
“The difference with Unlocked is you don’t have to tell a whole story in one episode. All eight episodes from this season are going to come together to tell one whole story of an off-season,” Timple said.
Season three will have eight episodes that will be released bi-weekly on Wednesdays. All episodes are released on Maryland’s TerrapinClub+ platform, and two days later released to the general public. Each episode will follow the regular format of the first couple seasons of being anywhere from five to 10 minutes long. Timple and Jenkins teased episodes that follow junior quarterback Taulia Tagovailoa in his final off-season, junior wide receiver Dontay Demus Jr.’s road to recovery, and spring ball content.
The first two episodes of the latest season have been released and the third debuted on Mar. 16 on TerrapinClub+. All fans will have access to the third episode on Mar. 18.
“It’s so worth the five to ten minute [watch] if you’re a fan of the team, if you want to know more about football…Not all teams give that access to what happens inside the program. We called it Unlocked for a reason…I think it’s really worth watching,” Timple said.
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