Maryland football picked up its first commitment in the class of 2028 on Monday when Kemontae Chaplin pledged to the Terps. The three-star edge rusher chose Maryland after reclassifying from 2027 to 2028.
The move gives Maryland an early recruiting foothold at a moment when the program is still without a confirmed next head coach. Chaplin, from Loudoun Sports Academy in Virginia, had narrowed his choice to Maryland, Ole Miss, North Carolina and Virginia Tech among other schools.
His pledge also fits the kind of profile Maryland has pursued in the region. Chaplin spent his two previous seasons at Friendship Collegiate Academy, where Aazaar Abdul-Rahim began his coaching career and later helped build a program that produced more than 100 college football recruits over 10 seasons in charge. That connection matters because Maryland has been trying to keep its recruiting pipeline moving even as the coaching search continues.
Chaplin’s production gives the commitment some weight beyond the recruiting label. Midway through the 2026 season, he had 30 total tackles, 16 tackles for loss and eight sacks, numbers that point to an edge defender already affecting games in the backfield. A reclassification usually means a player is ready to move up a class after adjusting for academic or developmental timing, and in Chaplin’s case it brings the decision forward by a year.
That timing is the friction point in all of this. Maryland’s previous four-star running back commitment, Jerome LaRue, decommitted in October, so Chaplin becomes the program’s first fresh addition in a cycle that still has a lot of uncertainty around it. If the Terps can hold him through the coaching change, they will have at least one building block in place before the next staff arrives. If not, this first step becomes another reminder that recruiting can move faster than a coaching search.
For now, Maryland has a commitment to point to and a next head coach still to hire. Chaplin has given the program something concrete in a class that had not yet taken shape, and the Terps now need to make sure this early win does not become a temporary one.
