Maryland football's 2026 class climbs in team rankings days before early signing period begins

Ahmed Ghafir
2 hours ago
2 min read

Maryland football will look to finalize its 2026 class during the early signing period beginning next Wednesday, Dec. 3 with five-star edge Zion Elee headlining the current 15-man class, but with the latest commitment from defensive back Sean Johnson, fans continue to watch the class ranking days before the next batch of additions put pen to paper.

With Johnson in the fold, Maryland now has the nation’s 34^th-best recruiting class and tenth-best in the Big Ten, sandwiched between Indiana and Michigan State. By average commit rating, Maryland stands 29^th nationally and ninth in the Big Ten, in between Nebraska and Illinois.

The rise comes after Maryland added three flip commitments this week with Johnson flipping from Florida State to Maryland days after the staff secured former Ohio State DL pledge Cam Brickle and App State QB pledge Nathan Bernhard in consecutive days. Of course, that includes Maryland hanging onto its current class with AD Jim Smith’s announcement providing the necessary security to have commits like Elee and three-star tight end Javonte Williams publicly shut down their recruitments again after receiving outside interest through the fall.

The bulk of Maryland’s class is also expected to sign early, though Johnson will enroll in College Park in June, as the Terps look to add more to its class in the final days. Whether Maryland draws more commitments out of the transfer portal set to officially open on Jan. 2 is worth watching with the focus set to soon shift to retaining key players from the 2025 season.

“We've started conversations with guys in our program,” head coach Mike Locksley said ahead of the season finale vs. Michigan State.

“A year ago, the church doors open and we saw a lot of people leaving. And the goal now is to make sure that we keep the nucleus of this team together, which I have no doubt in my mind they will. That's what this group has been about, really connected, really bought into everything that we're selling, everything that we've talked about wanting to become. It starts though immediately. There is no offseason. There is no take a rest, two weeks. Signing days next Wednesday, which is new coming off of a game, late Sunday game. We've got 48 hours to make sure that the recruiting part, we talk about retention, we also have to do recruiting. And to me, we're off to a pretty solid start with that. And there'll be some surprises as always that as we try to build this thing for the ‘26 season to be our best.”

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