Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/787374
T H E C L A S S O F 2 0 1 7 >>
I
guess it's just a fact of life that the rich
always end up getting richer with each
passing year. At least that seems to be
the case when it comes to Big Ten foot-
ball recruiting.
For each of the past :ve years, Ohio
State has landed the conference's top re-
cruiting class. Even though the Buckeyes
signed just 21 players this February,
Urban Meyer and his assistant coaches
kept their winning streak alive, bringing
in a class that ranked second in the
country and :rst in the Big Ten accord-
ing to Rivals.com.
Alabama is the only school in the
Football Bowl Subdivision that has re-
cruited better than Ohio State the past
:ve years. The Crimson Tide were
ranked ahead of the Buckeyes this year,
too, but I can't imagine there was a
school in the country that did a better
job of meeting its needs than Ohio
State. This could be Meyer's best class
ever. Not only do his new players have
an average rating of 4.15 stars, but he
and his assistant coaches were able to
address their biggest need by signing
the best defensive back class in the
country.
With three starting defensive backs
leaving early for the NFL Draft, Meyer
and his staff replenished those posi-
tions by landing two five-star players
who could fit in at either cornerback or
safety: Jeffrey Okudah of Grand Prairie,
A N A L Y S I S
Ohio State
once again
leads the way
in Big Ten
spring, while the Buckeyes have nine.
Elsewhere, Wisconsin has six, Illinois
and Rutgers four apiece, and Purdue
three.
As those numbers suggest, the early
enrollment phenomenon has been par-
ticularly helpful to the nation's most
prestigious programs. The players who
commit to the likes of Alabama and
Ohio State do so with the understand-
ing that they will need every edge they
can get as they look to compete for early
playing time.
That was part of Wade's thinking
when he began mulling whether to be-
come an early enrollee. He was an
honor roll student at Clairton (Pa.)
High, so he had the academic ability to
handle a heavier course load. He had
been thinking about it for a while, and
in the spring of his junior year, he de-
cided that he needed to follow through.
"He knew that he had to do well in the
classroom if he was going to not only
enroll early, but play football at this
level," Clairton coach Wayne Wade
said. "Once he started to get some big
o