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BIG TEN CONFERENCE FOOTBALL MEDIA DAYS

July 24, 2018

DJ Durkin

Chicago, Illinois

THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Maryland head coach DJ Durkin.

DJ DURKIN: Good to be here this morning, good to see everyone. Marks the start of a new season. Great day. Appreciate you being here.

I'd like for us to talk about the upcoming season, just take a moment to share some thoughts on Jordan McNair and what he meant to our program, the type of teammate he was.

Obviously the loss of Jordan has been a tremendously difficult thing for your entire program to deal with this summer.

Jordan was a special member of our team. He had a unique way about him that was infectious to his teammates. He was loved by everyone. And we have a team that's all working through the grieving process together.

That's been our focus with our guys, is to come together, be there for one another, both as student-athletes as well as the staff and coaches and everyone involved. He had such tremendous impact on so many lives. So everyone is working through and dealing with that.

Jordan's family are some of the finest people, starting with his mom and dad, Tanya and Marty. If our world had half the strength and character they have, it would be a much better place. And we spent some time with his family, that's just the start, with all -- you know, grandma, grandpa, aunts, uncles, so many wonderful people that we've gotten to know and spent time with.

Our hearts continue to be with them. They will not be forgotten. They will always be part of our program, Jordan and his family will always be part of what we do.

We've assigned a player committee to head that up and make sure that there's always a presence. We're a team playing for Jordan this year. So there will be some things we'll announce in the coming days as we get into the season of what exactly we're going to do and how we're going to handle that.

But, again, I think it's important that it's our players' decision to do that, and we're going to allow them to take that on.

I'm proud of our team and how they've responded. And like I said, it's still a team going through a grieving process. You have 105 guys with different personalities and background and all dealing with it in a different way.

I'm proud how they've come together and worked. I think these past couple of weeks we've had some really good time together. I think it's been helpful to be together. Our workouts have gone well, and so we're excited about that.

I'm proud of our team and really excited about our team going this year. I think we have a really good football team. I really do.

We have a good mix of veteran leadership, guys with experience that we're counting on that have played a lot for us and done some really good things, as well as I feel we've recruited very well. And we have some really good young talent. And it's going to help us on the field and provide a lot of depth.

So I like the spot we're in with that. And I think when you spend some time with the three young men we brought with us today -- Derwin Gray and Darnell Savage and Taivon Jacobs -- you'll see more of what I'm talking about, three great leaders in our program, guys that we're certainly counting on that play a lot of football for us and at a very high level.

We're excited about that, and I think it will be a great year for us. Questions?

Q. Recruiting classes, the last couple, at least, via national publications favorably reviewed what you've been able to do in that process, and that's kind of been a big concern for Maryland going back several years now. How do you address recruiting in your geographic region, your outreach programs, your radius from which you recruit players? If you could define that for us a little bit and how you go about that?
DJ DURKIN: How we go about our recruiting process? For us, I know I've said this before, and I truly mean it, the area we're in, I think we're in the center of one of the best football talent areas in the country. I really feel that way.

I've probably said it too much because it seems a lot more people are coming to try and recruit guys and take them out of there. But it really is that.

Not just from a talent standpoint, I think from a coaching standpoint, the level of coaching in our area at the high school level is, I think, about as good as anywhere you'll find. These are men who are recruited in seventh and eighth grade to what high school they're going to go to.

There's a lot of time, emphasis, money, put into this. And so in the end there's a lot of talented guys and guys that are really prepared when they get to your campus. There's not a big transition in a lot of circumstances to be able to play. A lot of these guys we brought in have played early for us.

Our formula is pretty easy. We're going to continue to recruit in the DMV and through our radius of our campus like crazy and do everything we can to keep as many guys here with us and representing their hometown as we possibly can. And we will certainly branch out in different certain areas. I think we've done pretty well down South and brought some guys up that have really helped us and will continue to do that as well. But that will be supplementing what our primary area is.

Q. It's well documented, all the quarterback situation you guys went through last year. Are you excited to hopefully go through a season where you keep guys upright? And are they looking forward to being able to go the route this season? And what do you want out of that position this year?
DJ DURKIN: It's not a trick question, right, we are excited to go through the year, obviously keep guys healthy. That will be definitely good for us and the goal.

It's like dÃ©jÃ vu. We're going into training camp again with a quarterback competition, which is good in many ways. I think competition is good for all of us. It keeps you sharp and focused.

Three young men that we have competing as well as our freshman, Tyler DeSue, are all outstanding young men, really good football players. It will be really good competition. We'll carry it into training camp, as we did last year, and at the appropriate time announce who the starter is, what the plan is moving forward.

I think the good thing is the guys we have we know we can win a lot of football games with. So it's a good competition in that way. In the short amount of time that Pigrome and Kasim were able to play last year, they showed us, as well as anyone that watched or studied it, they're tremendous football players and they're tremendous leaders. Their teammates look at them that way.

So those two guys, as well as Max Bortenschlager, will continue to compete. Max played a lot of football for us last year. I know a lot fell on him, but that certainly wasn't all on Max. And he's another year older and great experience.

So we're looking forward to that as a coaching staff. I think it's -- again, competition is a very good thing. Those guys feed off of each other very well. So they'll work through training camp, and we'll make a decision when the time is right.

Q. Coach, obviously your ties to the Michigan football program and the goals you have to kind of vault into that upper tier, if you will, of the East Division and what your plan and process is for that, but just your takeaways from learning under somebody like Jim Harbaugh, that whole experience and the structure it brings to what you do on a daily basis?
DJ DURKIN: Our program, real simple, our goal is to compete and win the Big Ten. Again, back to recruiting area and the people we've been able to bring into this program, we feel we're doing it at the level we need to do to be able to accomplish that. And so that's certainly every -- every guy that puts on a helmet for us or wears a whistle or is part of our program has that goal in mind.

Probably not unique to our profession, but definitely true in our profession, as you go along and work with different coaches and really coach different guys, I think you learn some from both players and coaches year-round, each and every day. We all take different bits and pieces from people. It's certainly part of what we do.

I've been very fortunate to be around a lot of, I feel, great, great men and great coaches. So a lot of what we do as a program is certainly things that we've learned and picked up along the way.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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