Rutgers Football recruiting wrapped up their planned June Official visits on fire bringing in eight four star players and a class that currently stands at sixth in the nation according to Rivals.com or ninth in the nation according to 247Sports. There are two major reasons why Rutgers finished the June official visits so strong. The first reason is that they recruited extremely well, or at least extremely well compared to what they usually do back in their home base of New Jersey. The second reason is how well they recruited in SEC country, especially in Florida and Georgia.
Rutgers Official Visits Convinced New Jersey Talents To Stay Home
Rutgers successfully convinced four New Jersey four stars and several New Jersey three stars to stay home and play for their state. The four stars headlining this New Jersey class are offensive tackle Jaelyn Matthews, running back John Forster, Linebacker Talibi Kaba, and wide receiver Michael Thomas III. Rutgers currently holds six out of the top 21 players in New Jersey, and two out of the top ten players in New Jersey according to 247Sports. Rutgers is also in strong contention to land another top 20 New Jersey recruit in Kamar Archie, who held his official visit last weekend and still has Rutgers as one of his top schools.
Archie has also taken numerous unofficial visits to Rutgers during his high school years so his connection to the Scarlet Knights is pretty strong.
This success in New Jersey is a telling story of what Greg Schiano has done at Rutgers. For the longest time before his second stint on the Banks and even during his first few years, Rutgers struggled mightily to compete with the college football powerhouses taking recruits from their home state. This year, Rutgers was able to land several of their home state’s recruits despite them being offered by much bigger programs. A true benchmark of a changing culture.
SEC country successes
In addition to putting up strong numbers in New Jersey, Rutgers has also been recruiting very well in what would be typically known as SEC country. The Knights in this class have used their strong Florida connections to pull in five players from the Sunshine State, four players from Georgia, and two players from North Carolina. Rutgers has always recruited Florida well, going back to Greg Schiano’s first stint on the Banks when he still had strong connections in south Florida from his Miami days. Now he has connections that he formed during his time with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and he has assistant coaches with strong ties to central and north Florida.
The Knights should be a recruiting force in the Sunshine State for years to come.
The pleasant surprise for how Rutgers has been recruiting down south is how they have been doing in Georgia this year. The Peach State has never been a really friendly recruiting pool for the Knights but this year Rutgers has landed four recruits from there, only two less than they have recruited from New Jersey this year.
The major change for Rutgers this year in comparison to years past has to be the success of their official visits because this year many recruits are committing right after their official visit. The main factor for this has to be that this year during the recruits’ official visits, the Knights coaching staff can run on the successes they had last football season when in years past that is something they were not able to do. They had to run on promises only but this year they can recruit on promises that have evidence because of last year’s successful, bowl-winning, campaign.