With recruitment over, Zion Elee leaning on teammates ahead of first year with Maryland football

Ahmed Ghafir
Apr 15
3 min read

Nearly one year before he was able to put pen to paper, St. Frances (MD) five-star edge rusher Zion Elee shocked the recruiting world by spurning his 40-plus offers from schools around the country to stay home and continue his football career at the University of Maryland.

The months that followed centered around the debate whether Elee ultimately would ultimately sign with Maryland as others like Penn State, Auburn, South Carolina and Texas loomed through the summer into his senior year. At first, Elee kept the door open, at least partially, with other schools after quietly taking a trip to Auburn during the summer then South Carolina during the season. Still, all the signs pointed to the hometown prospect sticking with the hometown team throughout the process as long as head coach Mike Locksley remains in place - and that's exactly how it materialized.

Yet Elee knew sticking with his year-long verbal commitment would have its own challenges.

"It definitely wasn't an easy decision to stay at Maryland because all the other schools in the country poaching at me throwing a lot of stuff at me and it just was really hard to turn down, but I did because I wanted to stay home," Elee said.

Head coach Mike Locksley pointed to the strength of the conference and Elee’s ability to become an impact piece in College Park like he would across the country.

“That's kind of just how he spoke about how the Big Ten is really all the same thing, like, whether I'll go to another school, I'll still be playing other teams in the Big Ten. So it's all just one conference. It’s where you feel comfortable and I feel comfortable here, so I chose to stay home.”

It did help that Elee established relationships with several of his current teammates. The former five-star spent time with both quarterback Malik Washington and edge rusher Zahir Mathis at the 2024 Under Armour Game, yet it was Elee and Washington who already decided to become Terps with Maryland’s pursuit of Mathis in its early stages at that point.

“He was asking me if he should go to Maryland. I was committed before him. So yeah, we've had a connection since high school,” Elee said.

Elee and Sidney Stewart also worked out with each other during high school as the Baltimore edge rushers later trained together with Dan Yarborough, a defensive line coach specialist out of the Baltimore area who was named new defensive coordinator at Calvert Hall this week.

After enrolling in January, Elee’s relationship with Stewart helped ease Elee into the transition to college football with the former blue-chip signee leaning on Maryland’s best.

“Ever since I got here, they’ve just been teaching me the new things about the program, the plays. Obviously, I'm catching on. They’re helping me with that too. My technique, everything.”

In the end, Elee pointed to that local connection as the reason why he put pen to paper to become part of an imposing pass rush in 2026.

“The local connection. I know people. I built real bonds with the coaches and stuff, so I feel like that's the right home for me,” Elee said.

Elee joked that Maryland was also the furthest his mom was willing to let him as the local product now looks to become the next great Nigerian pass rusher in College Park alongside others like Yannick Ngakoue, who Elee pointed to as his favorite.

Yet with his recruitment already behind him, Elee has since shifted focus toward his freshman season where he aims to become a Freshman All-American.

“Definitely the game is really faster. It's more of a technique game. There's a lot of things I had to work on. Sid and Zahir teach me certain new things about college and stuff,” he added.

Elee admitted his pass rush remains “very dominant” while noting his improvement defending against the ground game, yet he added that “nothing is easy” about transitioning to Power Four football as he pointed to the technical side of learning defensive coordinator Ted Monachino’s scheme.

“He's a very technical guy. He goes into detail about a lot of things. I see other people help me ease it down, like Sid and Zahir, of course, they helped me ease down basically what he's saying. He has a lot of good things he's saying and stuff. So I take that in. And Zahir just helps me dissect it.”

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