Blue White Illustrated

July 2020

Penn State Sports Magazine

Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1254482

Contents of this Issue

Navigation

Page 14 of 67

Rivals top 25 as of late May was Wiscon- sin. The Badgers had 11 verbal commit- ments, with two four-star Wisconsin prospects leading the way: free safety Hunter Wohler of Muskego and o7en- sive lineman J.P. Benzschawel of Gra9on. As always, the Badgers have done an excellent job recruiting their home state, with three-star linebacker Abe Adebogun of Mequon, three-star running back Loyal Crawford of Eau Claire and three-star athlete Jackson Acker of Verona joining Wohler and Benzschawel in the class. But despite all the positive recruiting news that the conference has been mak- ing lately, I'm still convinced that it's going to be very di8cult for more than four Big Ten schools to 6nish with top- 20 classes in 2021. When the February dead period for re- cruiting was extended through July, no one could have imagined that close to 650 members of the Class of 2021 would be verbally committed to Football Bowl Subdivision schools by the end of May, more than doubling the number of ver- bal commitments that schools had amassed by June 1 in the 2020 recruiting cycle. Both o8cial and uno8cial visits had to be canceled across the country, but that didn't stop prospects from ver- bally committing to schools in the Power Five conferences. The advent of virtual campus visits, coupled with the prolif- eration of videoconferencing apps like Zoom and FaceTime, helped prospects get to know schools and coaches. Many prospects made verbal commitments without taking in-person campus visits. Of the schools in the uppermost reaches of the Rivals.com Team Rank- ings, the ones that bene6tted the most from this process were Ohio State, Michigan and Tennessee. Three of the Buckeyes' 19 verbal commitments going into June were from prospects who had never been on Ohio State's campus when they announced their decisions. That might not seem like a lot, but it's rare for prospects to commit without visiting. And Ohio State wasn't the only Big Ten school where that was happening. As of this writing, the Wolverines had four players in their class who hadn't visited. It seemed that a number of recruits wanted to make sure there was room for them in their respective classes. It will be inter- esting to see if any of them end up taking ei- ther o8cial or uno8cial visits later this year. Tennessee went into June with Rivals' sec- ond-ranked class, and the Volunteers were leading all FBS schools with 24 verbal commit- ments. In the 6rst three weeks of May, Tennessee received verbal commit- ments from 13 prospects, eight of whom had re- ceived four-star ratings from Rivals. Interest- ingly, though, seven of the four-star prospects in that group indicated that they still plan to take either o8cial or uno8- cial visits to other FBS programs this fall. That's an indication of where things might be headed in the months to come – not just for Tennessee but for many of the programs RIVALS NATIONAL TOP 25* 1. Ohio State 2. Tennessee 3. Clemson 4. Michigan 5. USC 6. Florida 7. North Carolina 8. LSU 9. Minnesota 10. Iowa 11. Notre Dame 12. Rutgers 13. Oregon 14. Miami (Fla.) 15. Georgia 16. Texas 17. Penn State 18. Maryland 19. Auburn 20. Pitt 21. Baylor T-21. Wisconsin 23. Texas A&M 24. Boston College 25. Georgia Tech * As of May 28 WANTED MAN Rucci is the Lions' top re- maining offensive line target. Photo by Ryan Snyder

Articles in this issue

Links on this page

Archives of this issue

view archives of Blue White Illustrated - July 2020