4-star RB Peny Boone commits to Maryland football

Four-star running back Peny Boone announced his commitment to Maryland football on Monday after taking a trip to College Park over the weekend.

Boone becomes the newest top commitment in the Terrapins’ Class of 2019 with a 247Sports Composite score of 0.8950. He is ranked as the No. 25 running back in the 2020 class and the eighth-best player out of Michigan. Boone held offers from Michigan and Michigan State, but had the most interest in Indiana, Purdue and Tennessee outside of Maryland.

The Detroit native attends Martin Luther King high school and becomes the first Maryland commit to have played high school football in Michigan since Adrian Cannon, who was a part of the 2006 recruiting class. Talent in Michigan is quite abundant, but with programs like Michigan, Ohio State and Michigan State around, it has been hard for Maryland to poach players out of the area.

Listed at 6’2, 225 pounds, Boone will be one of Maryland’s biggest backs when he arrives on campus. That size makes him very tough to bring down out of the backfield, especially due to the fact that he mostly runs north-south rather than around the edge. He also has good hands out of the backfield, breakaway speed and the agility to make moves in tight spaces around the line of scrimmage. Boone’s play is very reminiscent of New York Jets running back Le’veon Bell, who shares a similar size at 6’1, 225 pounds.

Earlier this weekend, the Terrapins secured a commitment from three-star running back Ebony Jackson out of Georgia, who at the time was also the highest-rated recruit on board. Maryland is expected to take two running backs in this class, although things could change if DeMatha’s MarShawn Lloyd — the nation’s No. 35 player and a South Carolina commit — were to reopen his recruitment.

Boone’s commitment makes him the 11th player on board in the Class of 2020, and gives Maryland another major boost. The Terrapins now have the No. 30 class in the nation and sit eighth in the Big Ten. Things are starting to heat up for Maryland as it heads into the FBS recruiting dead period from June 24 to July 24, so things should be busy on campus this week as players who wish to visit before summer attempt to fit a visit in.