PISCATAWAY — In the wake of Rutgers’ loss at Maryland that culminated a 2-10 campaign, coach Chris Ash said a goal on the recruiting trail was to “create competition at each spot on the football team.”
To that end, Ash was pleased with his 2017 recruiting class.
In unveiling a class that was universally ranked in the low-to-mid 40s nationally and between 9th and 11th in the 14-team Big Ten on Wednesday, Ash said the 29-player group meets several of the needs his staff sought on the recruiting trail.
“Unlike last year Deneme Bonusu where we only had a couple of weeks to be able to throw the class together so to speak, we had a whole year to go through and recruit and develop relationships with these players, these families, high school coaches, around the state and around the area,” Ash said, “and really happy with what we’ve been able to put together here.”
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The class includes 17 recruits from New Jersey high schools, 16 offensive players and 11 on defense and two specialists, a pair of immediately eligible graduate-transfers and five mid-year prospects who enrolled last month and are already participating in 6 a.m. workouts.
During a late-afternoon press conference that was pushed back to accommodate the last player — running back Raheem Blackshear — to sign, Ash sounded like every other coach across the country on National Signing Day.
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“A lot of people talk about talent and star rankings and all that,” Ash said. “The things that we’re looking for first and foremost, we want to sign players that love football. They need to have a passion for the game of football, and I think we’ve been able to do that.”
Ash also understands the bottom line better than anyone. And that’s why he was so prepared the question presented to close his 20-minute news conference at the Hale Center.
Is Rutgers, fresh off a 2-10 campaign that included a 0-9 mark in Big Ten play, be more competitive in 2017 with its latest crop of prospects?
“To build a competitive football team, it requires a lot of work,” Ash said. “To sit here and say this class is going to make the difference in one year, that’s hard to say and it’s not fair to put that pressure on them.”
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But, in the same breath, Ash added: “Will this be the class that in time will, hopefully, be able to change the narrative of Rutgers football? Absolutely. How fast that happens remains to be seen. But I do like this class in terms of their character, their competitive spirit, their ability to be developed. They’re big, they’re strong, they’re faster than some of the other guys.
“I’m excited. With the guys returning and this group coming in, what we’ve done on our football team that we needed to do was create competition. The existing players on our team, they want to play and they don’t want to lose playing time or spots to new freshmen coming in. The freshmen coming in want a chance to take (playing) time, they want to try to have an opportunity to start. That creates competition. If we can create competition like that and everybody embraces it, hopefully the football team is better and the results change sooner than later.”
As the dust settled late Wednesday afternoon, Rutgers was generally commended by the national experts for its efforts to improve the talent level in the face of poor on-field results and the NCAA’s on-going probe into a series of potential violations.
Scout.com ranked Rutgers 45th nationally and 10th in the Big Ten. Rivals.com pegged the Scarlet Knights 43rd nationally and ninth in the conference. And 247sports.com rates Ash’s haul 42nd in the country and 9th in the league.
Tom Lemming, a national recruiting analyst for CBS Sports Network who is in his 38th year as editor of the Prep Football Magazine, essentially echoed those rankings.
“I thought it wasn’t a bad class,” said Lemming, who mentioned OL Micah Clark, QB Johnathan Lewis, WR Bo Melton, WR Everett Wormley, LB Tyshon Fogg, WR Shameen Jones and defensive back Najee Jones among his top Northeast prospects. “They lost some of the big-named (New Jersey) guys but they’ve done a real good job of evaluating the top prospects early and I thought they landed some of them.
“Overall I thought it was a very athletic class and slowly but surely as they start to improve on the field, which I think they’ll will, they’ll start landing the majority of the top kids in the state and keep them away from Michigan.”
Keith Sargeant may be reached at ksargeant@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @KSargeantNJ. Find NJ.com Rutgers Football on Facebook.
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