Ready To Ball Out

It’s not often a team loses a pair of standout defensive backs to the NFL draft and still has its secondary as a strength of the defense, but that is exactly the luxury Maryland football has heading into the 2023 season.

With a trio of veteran defensive backs in cornerback Tarheeb Still and safeties Beau Brade and Dante Trader Jr., the Maryland secondary—and the Maryland team as a whole—is poised for another big year. 

“Everyone’s talking about (Deonte) Banks and JB (Jakorian Bennett) leaving for the NFL, but we’ve got some dudes still here,” Trader said. “These guys want to work, they’re competitive. We have good depth, we’ve got some good young guys coming up. Each one of us has to step up and we all know that.”

The trio enters the 2023 campaign with a combined 84 games played, 53 starts, 301 tackles, 30 pass breakups and five interceptions. Still has started 27 games over his three years as a Terp while Brade and Trader both started all 13 games last season.

“Each one of them is a hell of a player,” transfer wide receiver Kaden Prather said. “You have to watch out for all of them in practice. It’s a blessing to be on their team and not have to try to get open against them every Saturday.”

That veteran knowledge is expected to be huge all season, especially as the Terps emphasize turning close losses against the Big Ten’s elite into wins.

“It goes a long way,” defensive coordinator Brian Williams said of the trio’s combined  experience. “Those guys have seen it a million times. We’re bringing in some young freshmen that are doing it for the first time so those guys have been able to shed their light and their knowledge on those guys.”

“They’re good players, they’re good people, and they believe in what we’re doing,” Williams added. “The speed of the pack is determined by the speed of the leaders. We’ll go as hard and as fast as they go, and we’re going to believe in them and trust that they’re going to continue doing the things they’ve been doing. We’re very fortunate to have those guys back.”

As all three guys recognize, there is no substitute for experience—especially in the ultra-competitive Big Ten conference. 

“When things start to fly off the chain, when it starts to get tough, you want guys who have been there before and have seen all these situations,” Still said. “And that’s what we have with us three back there.”

In addition to Still, Brade and Trader, the secondary returns 2022 contributors in Corey Coley Jr., Gavin Gibson and Glendon Miller. The group also brings in talented transfers in Ja’Quan Sheppard and Avantae Wiliams as well as several skilled true freshman and redshirt freshman. 

With the large number of new defensive backs expected to see the field, the trio’s experience and guidance becomes even more of a necessity. 

Fortunately—leadership is a trait that all three guys pride themselves on bringing.  

“At the end of the day, we’ve got to get the younger guys, the new guys ready to go and ready to be battle-tested,” said Trader, who played for the nationally ranked Maryland men’s lacrosse team in the 2023 season and earned USILA All-American honors. “We’re as good as our lowest guy.  We’re trying to be more connected this year so we’re focusing on that communication on and off the field. It’s on us to bring that leadership.”

Recently, that leadership has shown up in the form of extra workouts after practice.

“We’ve had to pick up how vocal we are this year and we have to continue to lead by example,” said Brade, who noted that the vocal leadership in the secondary needed a boost after the departure of last year’s vocal leader, Jakorian Bennett. “Leading by example is something we’ve always done, but when we get extra work after practice, now we’re always thinking about bringing those young guys with us. too”

Brade, the team leader in tackles with 85 last season, was the ninth-highest rated safety in pass coverage among all Power Five defenders with over 600 snaps at that position, earning an 84.4 grade via Pro Football Focus.

“Putting in that extra work was a big thing for us in the offseason”, he added. “We’re emphasizing getting an extra five minutes in because no one is going to say no to five minutes. But we’re never actually working for only five minutes. That’s always going to turn into 10, 15 or 20. That’s going to make the whole team better and it also teaches the young guys what Maryland football is all about.”

The strong work ethic and dedication to their craft that Trader, Still and Brade all share has bonded the three on and off the field. 

Brade and Trader, who will be roommates this coming season, have a well-documented friendship. However, the familial ties extend through all three of them. Brade and Still came in together as freshmen in 2020 and Trader joined the fold a year later. The shared fierce competitiveness and desire to continue to improve made it an easy bond between the three.

“Those are my guys, my safeties,” Still said. “I appreciate them. They hold me accountable on the field and off the field. They’re both great leaders on the field, they’re vocal, and they really want to win. I love playing with guys like that because that’s how I am myself.”

“We’re all like brothers,” Trader added. “We’re all so competitive, we’re gonna fight sometimes, but it’s always all love. We’ve grown a lot over the past two seasons, just continuing to learn who each other are, how to talk to each other, and then translating that onto the field.”

And as the trio hits year four (Brade and Still) and year three (Trader) in a Maryland jersey they’re each looking to take the next step as both individual players and by continuing to increase the standard of Maryland football. 

“We’ve all grown a lot through our years together,” Still said. “We’ve all been through a lot of stuff. We’ve shown a lot to where we came from to where we are now. And we’re still building, we’re still working towards where we need to go. We can accomplish a lot this season.” 

The 2023 Maryland football team has big aspirations, and the play in the secondary—led by the nucleus of Brade, Still and Trader—will be a big factor in seeing those aspirations come to fruition. 

Fortunately, those guys are more than up to the challenge. 

As Brade sums up, “We can’t wait for the season to start. We're ready to ball out.”