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Maryland’s recruiting improved the most out of any Power 5 team with a 1st-year coach

This is the Maryland Minute, a short story followed by a roundup of Terps-related news.

NCAA Football: Rutgers at Maryland Patrick McDermott-USA TODAY Sports

Maryland football’s recruiting is reaching new heights under DJ Durkin, and there’s even more data to back up this assertion.

Putting his team’s 2017 recruiting class in context with the rest of the country’s new head coaches, Durkin’s staff came out with the best improvement from Year 1, when coaches have to scramble to assemble their staffs and establish relationships with recruits, to Year 2, when they’re more cemented in their areas.

Our friend Alex Kirshner at SB Nation did God’s work, tallying up how each new head coach did in his first full recruiting cycle.

How coaches fared on Signing Day in Year 2

Team Coach 2016 Rk. 2017 Rk. Change
Team Coach 2016 Rk. 2017 Rk. Change
UTSA Frank Wilson 107 73 34
Bowling Green Mike Jinks 116 86 30
Ball State Mike Neu 111 84 27
Texas State Everett Withers 110 85 25
Maryland DJ Durkin 42 18 24
Louisiana-Monroe Matt Viator 118 96 22
Rutgers Chris Ash 61 42 19
Southern Miss Jay Hopson 98 79 19
Toledo Jason Candle 91 75 16
Virginia Tech Justin Fuente 40 25 15
UCF Scott Frost 66 54 12
Syracuse Dino Babers 64 55 9
Miami (FL) Mark Richt 21 13 8
Hawaii Nick Rolovich 106 98 8
Virginia Bronco Mendenhall 63 56 7
USC Clay Helton 10 4 6
Georgia Kirby Smart 8 3 5
South Carolina Will Muschamp 25 21 4
Memphis Mike Norvell 62 59 3
Iowa State Matt Campbell 55 53 2
East Carolina Scottie Montgomery 78 78 0
Missouri Barry Odom 43 50 -7
North Texas Seth Littrell 102 114 -12
BYU Kalani Sitake 51 67 -16
Tulane Willie Fritz 85 104 -19
Georgia Southern Tyson Summers 73 97 -24
Illinois coach Lovie Smith is excluded, because he took his job after Signing Day 2016. Southern Miss coach Jay Hopson took his job just days beforehand. 247Sports Composite

The only teams above Maryland are UTSA, Bowling Green, Ball State and Texas State. None of those teams play in Power 5 conferences.

Of the top 10 teams, no other ones were even remotely close to Maryland’s position. The rest moved from positions in the 100s to the 80s and 70s. Maryland improved from No. 42 to No. 18. No other programs made the leap from mediocre to top 20.

Elsewhere, Rutgers jumped from No. 61 to No. 42, and Virginia Tech went from No. 40 to No. 25. But Maryland, which signed its best recruiting class ever, has a better rate of improvement and a higher finishing spot than they did.

In other news

Maryland basketball lost to Penn State, which was unexpected.

Here’s Alex on Maryland’s recruiting success for SB Nation.

Our National Signing Day positional recaps reached the wide receivers, who are tall but undeveloped.

Steve Sarkisian, who took over as Alabama’s offensive coordinator right before the National Championship, is headed to Atlanta to become the Falcons’ new offensive coordinator.