Four-star quarterback, 2-sport athlete Kaden Martin commits to Miami to play baseball

Gino DiMare’s 2022 recruiting class for the Miami Hurricanes just got stronger and Manny Diaz’s could benefit because of it.

Kaden Martin, a four-star quarterback in the 247Sports.com composite rankings for the Class of 2022, orally committed to Miami on Wednesday and plans to focus on baseball in Coral Gables, an athletic department source said.

Martin announced his commitment at Knoxville Catholic High School in Tennessee.

The two-sport star is the son of Baltimore Ravens wide receivers coach Tee Martin and holds more than a dozen scholarship offers for football, including ones from the Alabama Crimson Tide. He picked Miami from a top group which also included the Tennessee Volunteers, Oregon Ducks and Arizona State Sun Devils.

The 6-2, 210-pound junior is both an outfielder and left-handed pitcher for Knoxville Catholic, and PerfectGame.org graded him as a “10” prospect, meaning the organization views him as a “potential very high draft pick” or “Elite level college prospect.”

As for football, Martin was a full-time starter at quarterback for the first time last year and led his Fighting Irish to an upset win against Tennessee’s Brentwood Academy by throwing for two touchdowns and running for three in a game televised on ESPN.

Just because Martin is primarily committed to play baseball doesn’t mean the Hurricanes’ can circumvent the 85-scholarship limit. If Martin participates in football while on scholarship for another sport, then his scholarship still counts against football scholarship limits as part of an NCAA exception to prevent teams from oversigning.

Miami, however, has operated under the 85-scholarship limit for years and could get creative with using one of its 25 annual initial counters on Martin should he decide to play both sports. The Hurricanes don’t have to use an initial counter on Martin until he decides to start playing football, meaning he could start out with a focus on baseball and move to play football whenever a counter opens up. Coaches across the country have also spent the last year pleading with the NCAA to make some sort of change to scholarship limits because of the COVID-19 pandemic and the glut of players returning for an extra year.

Miami will still continue to target other quarterbacks it has ranked higher on its board. Jacurri Brown, a four-star prospect from Georgia, recently named the Hurricanes to his top five.

For baseball, Martin is another huge addition, assuming he makes it to campus. Miami signed the No. 1-ranked Class of 2020, according to Baseball America, and has four of those freshmen playing major roles this season, including starting pitchers Victor Mederos and Alejandro Rosario.