Sidney Stewart opens up on his return to Maryland in 2026, talks offseason growth

Ahmed Ghafir
5 hours ago
6 min read

Year one of college football not only gave edge rusher Sidney Stewart a chance to prove himself on the next stage, but also his return to game. The 6-foot-2, 255-pound edge rusher saw his senior season at Concordia Prep taken away due to a controversial ruling that deemed all four years of eligibility already used, forcing Stewart to shift his energy toward the weight room while staying fresh on the field through workouts and drills. In an effort to make the best out of the situation, Stewart’s development plan helped quietly yet steadily draw buzz as one of the most physically-ready prospects along the East Coast in his class. But with a chance to put the pads back on, his arrival Maryland gave the freshman a chance to get back into his comfort zone.

Fast forward a year later, Stewart did exactly that and then some.

Stewart’s first career sack led to a safety in the season-opening win vs. Florida Atlantic, while he became the first player since at least 2007 to record four sacks through his first four games and notched at least 0.5 in each of his first five. He ended the season with at least 0.5 sacks in eight games and 0.5 TFLs in nine games, along with breaking the 46 year old freshman school record for TFLs with 10.5.

“In my mind, a healthy version of me was really successful,” Stewart said to IBG about his freshman season.

But once the 2025 season ended in Detroit with a 38-28 loss against Michigan State, Stewart joined the long list of players, whether at Maryland or another college football program, who had to make their stay-or-go decision. It’s the nature of college football in the modern era with NIL looming large as teams across the country balance the scramble of both closing out their season while shifting attention to roster construction for the following one. For some players, it’s a chance to re-establish their market value in the era of near-free agency. For others, it’s about making sure they’re happy where their feet are.

For Maryland, retention was the theme of the offseason with a chance for head coach Mike Locksley and his staff to hang onto the 2025 portal additions, given the vast majority arrived with multiple seasons of eligibility remaining. But the freshmen class was as big, if not bigger, part of the equation after watching the program’s deepest high school signing class of the 2000s complete their first season. Building on that experience was a message among teammates.

Quarterback Malik Washington made his return official first, announcing it during the Dec. 13 basketball game against Michigan, followed by Zahir Mathis on Christmas Day. Messiah Delhomme, Bryce Jenkins, CJ Smith and Jayden Shipps were among several other former 2025 signees to follow suit to make their sophomore seasons in College Park a reality.

Sidney Stewart was the last of the bunch after officially announcing his intention to return on New Year’s Day, ending what he called a “strenuous” process.

“It’s like when you’re in a relationship and you’re arguing with your girl, you go back and forth, back and forth, back and forth until eventually you come to a consensus, come to an agreement. Either that or you end up breaking up,” Stewart said.

“I think for me, these are people I love. I love this program, I love this school, but ultimately I had to find the best fit for myself. And if it happens to not be here, then that sucks but I had to go through that decision. I fought really hard because this was the school I really wanted to stay at. It wasn’t as if they had to convince me. I was working really hard with them, trying to make it work out so I could stay with my guys and stay here at this school.”

Stewart also admitted that both Washington and Mathis finalizing their returns “influenced me staying, I would 100% agree with that.”

“We had talked before, all of us were talking before anything got finalized. There was a lot of speculation as to me being the one of us three that maybe might not make it back and stuff, but obviously nobody can read my mind or my true intentions. I think their influence, that’s just what happens when we’re friends to that level and we’re that talented. It’s hard to get away from guys like that. They make you better. Having Zahir on the other end, I think I would be hard pressed to find somebody pretty much the exact same age as me with pretty much the exact same ability as me on the same team as me.”

Now that the business side of the aspect is complete, Stewart will now look to shift his attention to building into his sophomore season where the familiarity with the offseason schedule aids the process.

“Now that I understand how the workouts go and the timing of everything and what spring practice is going to look like, I think everything is a lot smoother and I’m able to individualize certain things to really work on the things I want to work on while also understanding the time management of everything,” he added.

Part of that remains training with Dan Yarborough, the current defensive line coach at Mount St. Joseph (MD) after coaching Stewart at Concordia Prep (MD) during his high school career. Yarborough does more than train Stewart, though, with several of the top defensive linemen in and around Baltimore making him a part of their offseason development. But Stewart isn’t the only Terp to take advantage of the added training with Mathis and Zion Elee, who enrolled the weekend of Jan. 19, becoming a familiar trio inside Jones-Hill House.

“The level of knowledge he has, I think he kind of nerds out and geeks out about pass rush so I think not just the drill, but the things he teaches in those sessions is second-to-none,” Stewart said of Yarborough. “I think further, our group as a whole, obviously with the addition of Zion, but I think we were already the most talented edge group in the nation. I just think we’re young, we’re all getting better. What we were able to do as a group last year with all of us having no playing experience, I think this year teams should really be worried and scared.”

Stewart also said the early nickname for the Terps’ pass rush trio is Cerberus, a reference to the three-headed Greek dog, but there’s also an expectation for him to “to do better than I did last year.” For Stewart, it’s a mentality shift as the once-inexperienced freshman now turns to one of the team’s leaders.

“We’re not just talented now. We’re experienced,” Stewart added. “My class and the early success we were able to have, it thrust us into a leadership role. We’re expected to be a little older, all things I think we’re capable of doing.”

“I just want to have a playoff caliber season. I think we were talented enough to do it last year, so I just want to actually see that through.”

The next part is turning words into results with Maryland coming off consecutive four-win seasons, and with the offseason ahead of him, Stewart is focused on doing exactly that.

“I would like to get faster, play more sideline-to-sideline. I want to be more consistent in the run game. I think I want to turn some of those one sack games into multiple sack games. I think there’s a lot for me to grow.”

With the focus now shifted to preparing for the starting of spring ball nearly six weeks away, Stewart is happy to do it in College Park for year two.

“I think Maryland is an all around great school,” he said. “That’s one thing I noticed. I knew I kind of had an understanding of what the team had to offer and the coaches and stuff, but I think I learned a lot about the school aspect of it. We’re really diverse, we have a large student body.”

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