Maryland Football: 2017 class is off to a great start
By Chris Bengel
This past weekend cemented one very important fact for the Maryland football program.
It showed that coach D.J. Durkin and his staff will go after the top talent locally and beyond.
The Terrapins began on Friday morning when they secured a commitment from four-star defensive tackle Cam Spence. Despite playing his high school football at IMG Academy (Fla.), Spence is a Bowie native and one of the better defensive line prospects in the nation.
On Saturday afternoon, Maryland kept their momentum going on the recruiting trail. Four-star quarterback Kasim Hill and three-star athlete Ayinde Eley pledged to the Terps just minutes apart.
In the span of 30 hours, Maryland scored their first two four-star commits and added a very talented three-star.
Durkin and his staff are certainly staking their claim to the local scene.
It’s very important to grab a top-flight quarterback early in the recruiting process and Durkin has definitely done that with Hill. After all, the Terps would’ve already had their guy if Dwayne Haskins stayed committed to the program.
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Hill appears to be in a very different mindset than Haskins was a year ago.
In an interview with Ahmed Ghafir of InsideMDSports, Hill said “Nope, no visits [elsewhere]. I’m not interested in doing all of that stuff, once I make it I make it on my own decision. Of course I want to play with my friends too, but there are a lot of other reasons that I picked Maryland. I want to get things started up again.”
Hill is an extremely talented player as he is rated as the No. 13 pro-style quarterback in his class. He is also ranked as the 295th best player.
Hill will certainly be a huge part of new offensive coordinator Walt Bell’s high-octane offense.
Durkin has also attacked the defensive side of the football on trail so far. After securing a pledge from Quince Orchard (Md.) three-star cornerback Fofie Bazzie last Sunday, Durkin was able to add Spence to a defensive line that certainly needs playmakers.
The Terps lost defensive end Yannick Ngakoue and defensive tackle Quinton Jefferson to the NFL Draft. Maryland also has a decent amount of uncertainty in the trenches, but that will be sorted out in the 2016 season with the additions of Melvin Keihn and Adam McLean.
Spence is rated as the 12th-best defensive tackle in the nation and a top 200 player overall. This is a guy who is one of the more explosive tackles in the country and could see playing time immediately once he arrives in College Park.
It’s pretty remarkable to look at the amount of talent that Durkin has brought to Maryland in just five months on the job. After a slew of decommitments in the 2016 class, he rounded out a Top 40 group and appears to be reaching even higher with a full year of recruiting under his belt.
With five players committed in 2017, Maryland has the No. 26 class in the country and the seventh-best class in the Big Ten.
Obviously, there is still plenty of work to do for Durkin and his staff. However, Maryland is hot on the trail of marquee blue-chippers like defensive end Joshua Kaindoh (IMG Academy), running back Anthony McFarland (DeMatha Catholic, Md.), and defensive end Chase Young (DeMatha).
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If Durkin can continue the current trajectory that he is on, the sky is the limit in terms of the amount of talent that the Terps can bring in.