WVU December Recruiting Update
With the regular season behind us, we focus on several things. First, we offered some bowl destination predictions for West Virginia football. Later this week, we will offer a post-season look under the hood. Now, however, we provide our WVU December recruiting update. With the Early Signing Period rapidly approaching, a large part of the staff focus is closing out the bulk of its high school recruiting efforts.
Recruiting Updates
We provided our last recruiting update for WVU mid-season. A few things have changed since that update. As happens sometimes, West Virginia lost a couple of commits. Most notably, the Mountaineers lost their commitment from Georgia running back Justin Williams. We cannot sugar coat this loss, as Williams piled up a monster senior season. West Virginia also lost Georgia defensive end Zion Young. He also had an outstanding senior season that appears to have shifted his focus to a trio of SEC schools.
These things happens. Contrary to the suggestion of some fans and sensationalist publications, the loss of a couple of recruits in November does not signal trouble in Morgantown. Indeed, the loss of a few long-term commits represents nothing new under the sun. Head Coach Neal Brown and his staff focus a lot of effort on being the first major program staffs to offer previously-overlooked talent. It happens almost every season during their tenure that a few of their recruits have late-cycle rating bumps and interest. Some kids (for example, Akheem Mesidor) place value on the early interest West Virginia shows. Others finally find their “dream” offers and jump at those.
The vast majority of the class has held firm in their commitments to date. The staff also added several big pieces to the class. For example, they added Clemson transfer Lyn-J Dixon and junior college transfer Lee Kpogba, both four star recruits out of high school. In other words, the team lost a four- and a three-star recruit but got two four-stars in return. It’s hard to say that’s a bad trade.
Reviewing the Class
As it stands as of the writing of our WVU December recruiting update, West Virginia has commitments at several positions of need.
On the offense, the Mountaineers add four-star Arizona quarterback Nicco Marchiol, who is already a well-known household name in West Virginia. WVU adds Dixon to the running back room, and they add ESPN four-star Alabama wide-out Jarel Williams to the receiver room. The staff adds a total of four three-star offensive linemen to the class, and they add three-star tight end Corbin Page from West Virginia.
On defense, WVU adds a pair of four-star linebackers in Travious Lathan and Kpogba. They also add three-star linebacker Raleigh Collins from Pennsylvania. On the defensive line, WVU has Clearwater Academy edge rusher Aric Burton in the fold. So far, West Virginia has a commitment from four-star cornerback Jacolby Spells out of Florida. The team also adds three pledges from high school safeties, Christion Stokes, Mumu Bin-Wahad, and Tyrin Woodby. The Mountaineers also received a pledge from Australian punter Oliver Straw.
In total, West Virginia’s class includes 17 players. Six of those players carry four-star ratings from at least one service. One (Straw) carries a two-star rating. The remainder carry three-star ratings. Many of those remain under-valued. Stokes, Bin-Wahad, and Page, for example, sit just outside the coveted blue-chip status. At least two of those could still receive post-season ratings bumps.
Looking at the Next Pieces
As most know, the NCAA granted a one-year waiver (for now) of the 25-scholarship annual cap. The waiver will allow teams to replace up to seven additional scholarship spots lost to the transfer portal. As a result, West Virginia has a maximum of 32 scholarship spots to give this cycle. So far, 17 are spoken for. That leaves 15 available scholarships for West Virginia to hand out.
We anticipate that the staff will add another three high school recruits to its class, leaving 12 spots available for junior college transfers and portal transfers. We expect up to three of those scholarships going to junior college transfers, leaving nine more spots available for transfer portal targets. Coach Brown has been remiss, so far, to add too much to his team from the transfer portal. There is good reason for this, to be sure. Pitt’s sudden success this season provides an example of how the balance between multi-year veterans and underclassmen really affects on-field performance. Brown focuses heavily on building his core.
That said, with a large part of that core in place, now is the time to add those final capstone pieces to the equation. With major coaching changes taking place this season, we expect the portal to be more active this year than the last couple years (which is saying a lot). Big pieces can be expected to move. The 32-scholarship cap applies to all schools who are losing to the portal, so there will be a bit more competition to land those transfers. That said, many of the upper-tier schools have far fewer scholarships available to give, even with the increased cap. Moreover, all teams must still abide by the maximum scholarship cap of 85. West Virginia remains in a good spot here.
Positional Analysis and Needs
Based on the current commitments West Virginia has secured, of the 15 scholarships left, the remaining scholarship breakdown is easy to predict. Based on the anticipated players leaving due to expired eligibility or to the NFL draft, the Mountaineers need to add the following numbers per position. On offense, the Mountaineers could use two more wide receivers, another tight end, and two more offensive linemen. On defense, they need another linebacker, two defensive linemen, three cornerbacks, and two more safeties. For depth, they could use another kicker as well.
If they lose more players to the portal (something that seems likely in this era), they would need to add another player of that same position. Indeed, with the players most likely to leave college after this season (twelve players walked for senior night), West Virginia will only have 29 scholarships to fill before they threaten the maximum 85 cap. If the team hands out the full 32 scholarships, at least three more current players will have to enter the portal.
We would expect that West Virginia will want to add several critical pieces through the portal regardless of how those numbers end up breaking down. WVU could use a veteran play-making wide receiver, an offensive linemen (preferably at tackle), a linebacker, a defensive tackle, a cornerback, and a safety to come through the portal. As a result, we expect the staff to place some focus there.
