Maryland football will welcome the second and final wave of its 2023 signing class to campus next month ahead of mid-June workouts. Former Lake Brantley (FL) three-star linebacker Mike Harris is in the process of finalizing the exact day he makes it to campus but the 6-foot, 201-pound linebacker is excited to begin the next phase of his career.
“I’ve just been just focusing on myself mostly,” Harris told IBG. “I’ve been just changing my meal plans because I’m starting to eat healthy now. Before, I wasn’t eating healthy, so now just going on jogs, normal runs so I can be ready for college when I get up there. I’m just doing necessary stuff so I can be able to go up there to be able to go over there and just get down straight to business.”
The biggest adjustment, of course, is that Mike and his twin brother, Andrew, will split up for the first time in their football careers with Andrew staying true to in-state UCF. “It’s gonna feel different not having someone that plays the exact same right next to me ever since you’ve been a kid. Freshman year, started from there, it has, it’s gonna be feeling different, but at the end of the day, we’re both going to NFL reality and the reality is we both might not get picked to the same team. So why not just go to different colleges now instead of dealing with it later?
The Harris twins originally planned to make their decision during the December signing period, but the lack of consensus within the household kept him on the market. “We weren’t sure because we were really trying to just like basically just wait it out.”
In the end, Mike stuck with his gut and gave outside linebacker coach James Thomas and head coach Mike Locksley his pledge in December and the consistency from Thomas played a big reason why.
“He’s a cool guy. I’m very comfortable around him. I’m willing to do stuff I’ve never did before with him. Plus I think it was because of the atmosphere. They just kept it real for real. Because at the end of the day, and really just the competition they play against, I want to become the best linebacker in college football. I just came back around my corner and realized when Coach T left really showed me a lot from UCF, really showed me a lot that coaches don’t stay there for you. They’ve got other relations. So Maryland on the other side, their atmosphere, it’s family.”
Maryland returns ample experience in their inside linebacker room with Jaishawn Barham leading a unit that features Fa’Najae Gotay, Ruben Hyppolite, Gereme Spraggins and Caleb Wheatland. Harris will look to add to that talent with his beach workouts giving him a different opportunity to prepare for his first round of workouts under Ryan Davis.
“I really want to be a true freshman All-American linebacker.”
Mike, who was named the Seminole Athletic Conference Defensive Player of the Year, was rated a three-star prospect and an 88 overall by On3.
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