Rutgers Football: 2018 Recruiting rankings are upon us

It’s summer and a mere 226 days til NLI Signing Day! What else are we doing?

It’s was a slow go for Chris Ash in terms of getting commits, although over the last week or so, a gaggle came on board. The list of recent additions through Sunday, June 25 is below:

OT Matt Rosso

Safety Zamir Mickens

Athlete Kessawn Abraham

LB Jayden McDonald

RB Isaih Pacheco

So where does Rutgers stand as the camps are winding down and we hit the last week of June? Probably where most of us thought they might be at this point. The table shows national rankings for the different services:

Despite the fact that the recruiting services try to keep their charts updated, it was interesting to note that for at least half of the conference, there were different number of commitments depending on which service you checked. It’s why we’re listing an *average of commits for all the schools, leading to the average number of commits at the bottom.

Another note on the number of commits: the ranking of players may be playing a role in the numbers. For example, 247Sports says eight on its rankings page, but when you click on Rutgers they show all 9 commits. One is unranked while the other eight commits are 3-stars.

To point out how crazily and quickly things can change, the numbers above are as of Sunday, June 25. Two days prior - on Friday - Rutgers was four spots lower on Scout (64), one better on Rivals (66), and one worse on 247 (59).

And if you’re concerned about Rutgers’ position, be happy you don’t root for the Crimson Tide. This is suicide watch material down there.

And who trails Rutgers? Well, in the Big Ten, not many. Illinois and Indiana (see Crimson Quarry) are pretty consistently behind the Scarlet. On a national level, it again varies depending on the service.

The PJ Factor

Minnesota got off to a rousing start in recruiting, much of it based on the hiring of PJ Fleck. Fleck pulled a number of Central Michigan recruits over to the Gophers almost immediately after his hire. Minnesota finished 57th nationally and as the 12th best Big Ten recruiting class in 2017 per 247Sports, 14 and three spots respectively behind Rutgers.

The DiNardo View

Gerry DiNardo does the ranking stuff for BTN. He does his compilation’s each Monday. Last week, Rutgers looked like this:

And the top of the conference was.....go ahead, guess.

A week later and Rutgers looks better on the rankings but not on stars. That can change based on player performance.

But it is still June.

Update:

Deion Jennings committed Monday night, read more on him here. On Tuesday night, 3-star OL Reggie Sutton committed as well.