DJ Durkin couldn’t hide his smile. It was on display from the moment he stepped in front of a jam-packed Glazer Auditorium on Thursday for the first time as the Terrapins football coach.

He looked like a kid on Christmas who had been awake since long before the sun showed its face, just yearning for his parents to get up so he could open presents.

“I’ve been waiting for this day for a long, long time, been praying for it and it’s finally here,” Durkin said to open his news conference. “To say the least, I’m very excited.”

More than 25 minutes later, the smile was still plastered across his face as he posed for photos with his family, Athletic Director Kevin Anderson, university President Wallace Loh, Testudo and just about everyone else you could think of.

The Youngstown, Ohio, native isn’t the offensive-minded genius some were hoping for, but his youthful energy and defensive resume make up for it and then some. It isn’t the sexiest hire. But it’s the right one.

READ MORE: Durkin finally impresses daughter by becoming head coach

Durkin was the guy Jim Harbaugh hand-picked to lead his defense in his first season at Michigan.

Durkin was the then-32-year-old soaking in information while working under Urban Meyer, who boasts three national titles.

Durkin was the Rivals.com 2012 recruiter of the year who helped land four straight top-11 recruiting classes.

And now, the 37-year-old is the youngest coach in the Big Ten.

When Anderson sat before a group of reporters in Glazer Auditorium on Oct. 11, the day former coach Randy Edsall was fired, he detailed what he’d be looking for in the program’s 36th coach.

“When you look at football today, the fans want exciting, wide-open offense,” Anderson said then. “That’s part of the reason why we weren’t successful these last six games, is that you got to open up the offense.”

He went on to say later: “The next time we sit down with anybody, we’ll have data that will include what their past has presented and what they’ve done, and we’ll take all of that and we’ll bring forth a great football coach.”

Durkin doesn’t fit Anderson’s initial depiction of the ideal candidate. After all, he’s never been an offensive coach, and his past includes no experience as a head coach, besides one game as interim coach for Florida.

But forget all that for a second. Understand that every great coach started somewhere. Understand that there are no red flags in Durkin’s resume. Understand that this guy literally did not stop smiling when talking about becoming the Terps’ next coach.

This program isn’t going to be turned around in one night. Not unless Durkin has some secret powers we don’t know about.

The Terps are coming off a 3-9 season and play in one of the toughest conferences in college football. Questions remain about the future of former interim coach Mike Locksley, considered the linchpin of the Terps’ 2016 recruiting class.

Without him, the Terps could lose high-profile guys like four-star blue-chip quarterback Dwayne Haskins Jr. But Durkin doesn’t seem concerned about that.

“You try to find guys that are competitive,” Durkin said. “That’s the characteristic that carries over anything. We’ve all seen a guy ranked a four, five star, and he goes wherever and never quite pans out to what everyone thought he was going to be.”

He wants guys like him, who are willing to come to a program that needs to be built up. He wants guys who will invest in that process. Haskins and the others seemed OK with that with Locksley at the helm, but that could change now.

Regardless, Durkin instilled confidence with his answers Thursday, one smile at a time.

It’ll be months before we see him take the sidelines at Byrd Stadium. So for now, we will just have to wait to see how he fills out his staff and how recruiting goes.

Come fall, though, there’ll be a reason to be excited in College Park again.