Turtledroppings.com – Maryland Football And Basketball Blog

I always get excited when I hear one of our recruits is graduating early to get a head start on school and most importantly for us fans, football practice, conditioning, and weight training.  Will Darin Drakeford make it on to the field this year?  I wouldn’t count on it, but there will be spots opening up next year at linebacker, and he could very well benefit from the extra time in the program.  I always feel for kids that give up that last semester of high school, but let’s be honest, who wouldn’t rather be on a college campus?

Darin is a graduate of Theodore Roosevelt HS in Washington D.C.  His football team had a subpar season, but Drakeford stood out enough to be named the Gatorade Player of the Year for Washington D.C.  His stat line is impressive considering he made a switch to linebacker this year after playing DE last year.  91 solo tackles, 33 assists and 14 sacks. 768 yards rushing and 10 touchdowns on 37 carries. 22 receptions for 422 yards and four touchdowns earned him 3 stars and the number 77 outside linebacker from Rivals, and Scout matched his 3 stars and listed him as the number 41 weakside linebacker.

Darin was born in Washington D.C. on July 5, 1991.  (Happy Belated birthday!)  The other big reason to like Darin is, he picked Maryland over Duke, like everyone should!  He also considered Pitt, Illinois, and Boston College.    So in keeping with our tradition, here are the league Champions and other news of note for many sports in 1991:  New York Giants won the Super Bowl, Washington Huskies, and Miami Hurricanes were Co-National Champions in NCAA Football, Desmond Howard won the Heisman,  Jack Morris and the Minnesota Twins won the World Series over the Braves, Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls win their first NBA title, Magic Johnson announces he is HIV positive, and (this will make you sick) Duke won the National Title in basketball.  1991 saw John Daly steal America’s imagination by winning the PGA Championship as an alternate.  Payne Stewart won the U.S. Open.  Strike the Gold won the Kentucky Derby, but the Preakness and Belmont belonged to Hansel.  Mario Lemiuex lead the Pittsburgh Penguins to the Stanley Cup victory over the Minnesota North Stars. 

So there you have it.  Welcome to campus Darin, we are looking forward to seeing you on the field, and remember college is one of the best times of your life.  I hope you enjoyed that extra semester on campus.

Extra Droplets

Don’t forget Terrapins Rising debuts Tuesday at 9:30 on Comcast Sportsnet Mid-Atlantic.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 13th, 2009 at 7:01 pm and is filed under Maryland Terps Football. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.