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June 20, 2008

Weekly recruiting roundup

Maryland’s summer football camp was in full swing this week, while the second session is set to kick off Monday.

Yahoo! Sports caught up with three prospects that mentioned the possibility of camping in College Park:

No. 1: Christian Kuntz, a 6-foot-4, 195-pound wide receiver from Camp Hill (Pa.) Trinity.

“My dad went to college and played at Maryland,” he said. “I’ve always had a thing for Maryland and grew up watching Notre Dame a lot too. Right now out of all the schools recruiting me though, UConn is on top.

“I am hearing from them, Notre Dame and Maryland. I’m looking at heading to a few more camps, Penn State Tuesday, Maryland Thursday, Virginia next Monday and Notre Dame at the end of June. They are all recruiting me heavily.”

No. 2: Brian Leffler, a 6-foot, 215-pound linebacker from The Hun School in Princeton, N.J.

“I have offers from Temple, Tulane and West Virginia,” he said. “Miami (Ohio), Army, William & Mary and Yale have offered. Yale offered me a spot on the team.

“Temple was fun, it was good to be on campus,” he said. “I’m going to take a visit to West Virginia sometime this month or in July. I’m going to camp at Northwestern and I might camp at Maryland and Rutgers too.

No. 3: Byron Parker, a 5-foot-11, 173-pound athlete recruit from Virginia Beach (Va.) Tallwood.

“I got my second offer last week from Temple on Tuesday,” he said. “I’m planning to go up there for camp this weekend and then to Maryland on Monday. I don’t know where I’m going after that.”

The Gazette took a look at Montgomery County’s numerous DI football prospects, including Maryland targets Jason Ankrah, a defensive end from Quince Orchard, Travis Hawkins, a cornerback from Quince Orchard, Jelani Jenkins, a linebacker from Good Counsel and Caleb Porzel, a running back from Good Counsel. The story also mentions Terps safety commitment Avery Graham, who is completely sold on UM.

Clarksburg coach Larry Hurd on Graham: ‘‘Everybody has said they’d offer him. You name it, they’ve wanted to see him. I mean, look at him. ... Avery has been clear with everyone: He’s a Terp, and he’s going to be a Terp.”

GoGamecocks.com offers its weekly look at South Carolina football targets. Per usual, several prospects with varying degrees of interest from Maryland are mentioned, including Blythewood, S.C., defensive end Justin Anderson, Fort Walton Beach, Fla., linebacker Matt Coffee and Roswell, Ga., defensive end Euclid Cummings. Anderson planned on coming to College Park for camp.

Blythewood coach Geremy Saitz said Anderson has offers from Georgia Southern, Newberry and Presbyterian, and verbal offers from Maryland and Georgia Tech. Anderson visited Georgia Tech about a month ago and plans to camp at Maryland and Virginia Tech.

• Terps offensive tackle signee R.J. Dill held his own in last weekend’s Pennsylvania-Ohio Big 33 game, according to The [Cumberland County, Pa.] Sentinel.

“(Those early points) were a big difference,” said Trinity offensive lineman R.J. Dill, who stifled an Ohio pass rush on the strong side, giving Sunseri enough time to find Aliquippa wideout Jonathan Baldwin for a 37-yard pass on Pennsylvania’s first offensive play of the game. “Guys like (Baldwin) made big plays for us, that helps.”

• Ending with one non-recruiting related link, Rivals.com college football writer Tom Dienhart identified five new offensive coordinators that enter pressure-filled situations this fall. New Terps offensive coordinator James Franklin was one of the five.

Maryland ranked 93rd in total offense in 2007, the season Franklin’s K-State offense became the first in school history to boast a 3,000-yard passer, a 1,500-yard receiver and a 1,000-yard rusher. Franklin, 36, faces the pressure of trying to sort out a muddled quarterback picture plus deal with the loss of two good running backs in Keon Lattimore and Lance Ball.

Posted by Matt Bracken at 11:23 AM | | Comments (3)
Categories: Weekly recruiting roundup
        

Comments

Matt, Great job with this blog. Thanks.

Thanks for the info. on Terp recruit prospects and commits.

Who do you think are the top targets for the Terps in the state of Maryland? I think Jenkins may be # 1.

CA and UMD -- Thanks for the kind words.

UMD -- You're probably right on Jenkins. He's got offers from everyone, so that would be a huge get. Tavon Austin (Dunbar), DeOnte Arnett (Forestville), Travis Hawkins (Quince Orchard) and Jason Ankrah (Quince Orchard) are some other big-time in-staters. It's a really good class in Maryland.

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About Matt Bracken

Matt Bracken was a lightly recruited football and tennis prospect out of East Lansing (Mich.) High School in 2001, but spurned all (nonexistent) scholarship offers to attend the University of Michigan. Matt graduated from UM in 2005, earned a master's degree in new media journalism from Northwestern University in 2006, and spent the first 11 months of his career as an online producer / videographer / blogger at the Arizona Daily Star in Tucson. He has worked at The Baltimore Sun since July 2007, where he currently serves as an assistant sports editor / producer / recruiting writer.

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