When Maryland football head coach DJ Durkin walked up to the podium for his National Signing Day news conference in College Park, Md., Feb. 1, his first remark was that it was "hard to wipe the smile off my face right now."
The Terps had just put the finishing touches on a 28-man freshman class -- the first recruiting class that was completely the work of Durkin and his staff. Maryland's class is rated 17th in the nation by Rivals.com. Seventeen of Durkin's recruits are from Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia.
"Our formula is, we're going to take care of our backyard," Durkin said. "We're going to win here in the DMV and build our team with that being our foundation. And so to land 17 guys in one class from here is big time. There's eight guys in the class, I believe, that have been [Washington Catholic Athletic Conference] all-conference players. There are a lot of Maryland public schools that are represented.
