Watch Mike Locksley’s National Signing Day press conference

It’s been a productive National Signing Day for Maryland football. The Terps entered Wednesday with 14 verbal commits and have added three more, bringing their national ranking up from 72nd to 59th.

Head coach Mike Locksley addressed the media in College Park to discuss his first signing class at Maryland.

The new headliner for the class is Lance LeGendre (pronounced “Le-ZHON”), a four-star quarterback from New Orleans. LeGendre committed to the Terps over Florida State Wednesday morning and should immediately enter the mix under center. Locksley had previously recruited LeGendre while at Alabama, and said the process of wooing him to Maryland took about two weeks.

“Just like what happens to most people when they get here on this campus, they see the vision, they see the investment that the administration’s made with the facilities that we’re building, and then the opportunity,” Locksley said. “That’s the one great thing we had to offer, was an opportunity. With a new staff coming in, to have the opportunity to come in and compete, and Lance is a competitive player ... we feel he’ll be a great addition to the quarterback room, which already has some talented players as well.”

Maryland also added JuCo guard Parris Heath and Florida linebacker/safety Cortez Andrews on Wednesday. Both come at positions of need; Maryland graduated four offensive line starters and multiple defensive backs this offseason. The Terps also added several pass-rushing defensive ends in recent weeks, and of course, the program can never have enough quarterbacks.

“We were able to meet the needs that we had,” Locksley said. “We were able to get the players to fill the slots—we had position slots and position needs, and we felt like we hit on all those.”

The class has plenty of local products, as should be expected given the talent in the region and Locksley’s long-standing ties in the region. But Maryland also pulled recruits from Georgia, Florida, Louisiana and more in this class, and Locksley believes the school has something to offer to recruits all around the country, in football and beyond.

“We have a great place here. The most important city in the world is located 15 minutes from our campus—Washington, D.C.—so that’s an easy sell. People fly from all over the world to come to this city,” Locksley said. “The resources available to a student-athlete here at the University of Maryland, a top-25 academic institution in a lot of different fields, what is it not to like about this location in Maryland?”