Maryland football picked up two public commitments from its second official visit weekend, and the first came from the local ranks as Calvert Hall (MD) three-star tight end JT Taggart made his decision official after telling the staff on Friday night and announcing his decision on Saturday morning. Ravens running back coach Willie Taggart, JT’s dad, will now get a chance to watch his son 40 minutes away from work. “It’s exciting. Probably more excited for mom than anything, which makes it easier and happy for me,” Taggart said during Wednesday’s media availability. “Mom’s happy, everybody’s happy, but also Maryland is a great program. Coach Locksley is doing an awesome job down there and for me, I want someone to finish what we started. Again, like I told coach Locks, I’m handing him off to you. I need you to take him to the finish line, help him continue to develop. My wife and I have done this far and we just want that to continue and the football part will take care of itself, he’ll do his part from that standpoint. I want coach Locksley to help him become a man.” The two nearly teamed up in 2018 at Florida State during Taggart’s stint as the ‘Noles head coach before Locksley elected to remain at Alabama, while their relationship through the years gave the Terps an ‘in’ with the nearly 6-foot-8 tight end. Though JT transferred into Calvert Hall ahead of his junior season, the in-state target had Maryland in his top group throughout his recruitment as assistant Kevin Sumlin led the way. Maryland topped both Colorado and West Virginia for his pledge while his late June official to Colorado has since been canceled. “As soon as I got there, it just felt like home. Really easy place to be,” Taggart told IBG after his decision. Taggart became the third pledge from Calvert Hall in as many cycles, joining walk-on WR Ricardo Cooper and DE Daniel Owens. “Love sending kids in-state, staying at home at Maryland because we want to see them be very successful, we want to see coach Locksley be very successful,” Calvert Hall head coach Josh Ward told IBG. “And it’s awesome because our tight ends coach, Bernie Fiddler, his position coach at Maryland was actually Locksley. I know texted him and he was really excited to have one of his position guys play for his coach.” Related Links
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