Henderson transfer signals that Terps have an eye on the future

In terms of this season, DJ Durkin is not looking past his first game as Maryland’s football coach next Saturday against Howard in College Park.

As for building the Terps into a competitive Big Ten team, Durkin is clearly looking to the future.

That was apparent when Durkin took quarterback Caleb Henderson, a redshirt sophomore at North Carolina, as a transfer earlier this week.

Unless the Terps sign a graduate transfer for 2017, Henderson will be the oldest quarterback on the roster next season.

“He’s an experienced guy. He’s been around college football for a while now,” Durkin said Friday on a teleconference with reporters. “The timing of it with where we’re at, we’re going to be young at that position.”

Henderson, who will sit out the 2016 season in accordance with NCAA rules, will be a redshirt junior in 2017 while redshirt sophomore Gage Shaffer will be the next-oldest quarter- back. The Terps also have two true freshmen, Tyrrell Pigrome and Max Bortenschlager, on the roster.

Durkin has received an oral commitment from Kasim Hill, a four-star recruit who is playing his senior year at St. John’s in Washington after transferring from Gilman.

Henderson was a four-star recruit coming out of Lake Braddock High in Northern Virginia two years ago. After redshirting the 2014 season and getting into two games last year in Chapel Hill, the 6-foot-3, 215-pound Henderson was expected to compete for the No. 2 job with the Tar Heels.

Henderson’s decision came after he lost out to another redshirt freshman for the job. While it was reported that Henderson transferred after losing the backup job to Nathan Elliott, Henderson tweeted that his decision “had nothing to do with football.”

Henderson is familiar with Maryland offensive coordinator Walt Bell, who helped recruit him while serving as the tight ends coach at North Carolina before leaving two years ago to become the

offensive coordinator at Arkansas State.

The spread offense Bell is bringing with him to Maryland is similar to the one still used by the Tar Heels.

“He’s very familiar with the offense that is very similar with the previous program [at North Carolina], what they run and what we run,” Durkin said of Henderson.

Some other bits of information to come out of Friday’s teleconference:

Though Durkin won’t list his depth chart until early next week, he made it clear he and his staff have not settled on a number of positions, particularly the offensive and defensive lines.

Durkin said he will have “six starters” for the five positions on the offensive line. “We feel really good at that spot,” he said. As for the defensive line, there is “an eight- or nine-man rotation up there,” Durkin said. “We have a pretty good idea of what the rotation will be and who’s playing, and who’s up there at the ones. We’ll keep looking at that and evaluating that. The guys who practice the hardest and most consistent, that’s the ones.”

Durkin said he and his assistants have been moving players around quite a bit during preseason camp, either within the offense and defense or jumping back and forth between the units.

“At the end of the day it helps everyone,” Durkin said. “It helps the competition. It lets guys know that we’re going to figure out what to do to get the best guys out there. It helps these guys learn our scheme of offense and defense better. … I have no problems in playing guys both ways, too.”

Durkin said he plans to have “at least one guy” play both ways — presumably senior Will Likely — and maybe more.

Durkin said he expects true freshman safety Qwuantrezz Knight to be part of the rotation in the secondary, though Knight won’t be the only first-year player the Terps will use.

“There will be quite a few,” Durkin said. “If there are any guys we feel can help us, and help us to win at a high level, we’re going to play them.

“We feel really strongly about the class. They’ve got good energy, [add] good competition to this team.”