Throwback Thursday: Rutgers Football and Ohio starters as recruits
One of The Knight Report’s weekly game preview pieces is our Throwback Thursday piece, where we compare the projected Rutgers Football starters as recruits to their team’s opponent each week.
However the first game of the season is on a Thursday, so we decided to do this piece a week early. With that being said, let’s compare the Scarlet Knights to the Ohio Bobcats football team to see what they looked like and where they were ranked in high school.
**This is not a depth chart, rather this is the same chart that we used for our pre-camp predictions.**
Quarterback
| POSITION | PLAYER | HIGH SCHOOL INDUSTRY RATING |
| QB | Athan Kaliakmanis | 91.20 (No. 202 NATL.) |
| POSITION | PLAYER | HIGH SCHOOL INDUSTRY RATING |
| QB | Parker Navarro | 82.70 (No. 1308 NATL.) |
Running Back
| POSITION | PLAYER | HIGH SCHOOL INDUSTRY RATING |
| RB | CJ Campbell OR Antwan Raymond OR Ja’Shon Benjamin | N/A (Unranked) 86.90 (No. 816 NATL.) 84.08 (No. 1299 NATL.) |
| POSITION | PLAYER | HIGH SCHOOL INDUSTRY RATING |
| RB | Sieh Bangura | 82.75 (No. 1088 NATL.) |
Wide Receivers
| POSITION | PLAYER | HIGH SCHOOL INDUSTRY RATING |
| WR | Ian Strong | 84.54 (No. 1204 NATL.) |
| WR | KJ Duff | 90.70 (No. 273 NATL.) |
| WR | DT Sheffield | 88.69 (No. 37 JUCO) |
| POSITION | PLAYER | HIGH SCHOOL INDUSTRY RATING |
| WR | Chase Hendricks | 83.90 (No. 1320 NATL.) |
| WR | Rodney Harris II | 84.03 (No. 1162 NATL.) |
| WR | Caleb Gossett | N/A (Unranked) |
Tight End
| POSITION | PLAYER | HIGH SCHOOL INDUSTRY RATING |
| TE | Kenny Fletcher OR Colin Weber | 88.33 (No. 474 NATL.) 79.10 (No. 1986 NATL.) |
| POSITION | PLAYER | HIGH SCHOOL INDUSTRY RATING |
| TE | Mason Williams | 81.89 (No. 1785 NATL.) |
Offensive Line
| POSITION | PLAYER | HIGH SCHOOL INDUSTRY RATING |
| LT | Tyler Needham OR Dantae Chin | 83.53 (No. 919 NATL.) 82.50 (No. 1452 NATL.) |
| LG | Bryan Felter | 85.53 (No. 805 NATL.) |
| C | Gus Zilinskas | 80.56 (No. 1670 NATL.) |
| RG | Kwabena Asamoah | 86.72 (No. 701 NATL.) |
| RT | Taj White | 85.47 (No. 887 NATL.) |
| POSITION | PLAYER | HIGH SCHOOL INDUSTRY RATING |
| LT | Davion Witherspoon | 81.54 (No. 1389 NATL.) |
| LG | Trent Allen | N/A (Unranked) |
| C | Nick Marinaro OR Kam Wright | N/A (Unranked) N/A (Unranked) |
| RG | Jordon Jones | N/A (Unranked) |
| RT | Shedrick Rhodes | 79.82 (No. 2168 NATL.) |
Looking across the board, Rutgers Football obviously has the higher ranked recruits throughout just about every position across the board. You could argue that the closest position group on offense in terms of the recruit ratings is the offensive line, but when you look a bit closer the Bobcats top ranked OL recruit, Shedrick Rhodes could barely crack the lineup at Rutgers last season.
Overall the Scarlet Knights have a significant advantage here on offense, but don’t count out Ohio’s quarterback Peter Navarro, as he’s one of the better at the Group of Five level.
Defensive Line
| POSITION | PLAYER | HIGH SCHOOL INDUSTRY RATING |
| DE | Eric O’Neill | N/A (Unranked) |
| DT | Keshon Griffin | 82.83 (No. 1069 NATL.) |
| DT | Zaire Angoy OR Doug Blue-Eli | 81.90 (No. 1294 NATL.) 84.35 (No. 46 JUCO) |
| DE | Bradley Weaver | 80.11 (No. 1772 NATL.) |
| POSITION | PLAYER | HIGH SCHOOL INDUSTRY RATING |
| DE | Kaci Seegars | 83.21 (No. 973 NATL.) |
| DT | Pius Odjugo | 81.06 (No. 1538 NATL.) |
| DT | Nehemiah Dukes | N/A (Unranked) |
| DE | Anas Luqman | N/A (Unranked) |
Linebackers
| POSITION | PLAYER | HIGH SCHOOL INDUSTRY RATING |
| LB | Dariel Djabome | N/A (Unranked) |
| LB | Moses Walker | 91.63 (No. 208 NATL.) |
| POSITION | PLAYER | HIGH SCHOOL INDUSTRY RATING |
| LB | Michael Molnar | N/A (Unranked) |
| LB | Jack Fries | N/A (Unranked) |
Defensive Backs
| POSITION | PLAYER | HIGH SCHOOL INDUSTRY RATING |
| CB | Bo Mascoe | 85.80 (No. 933 NATL.) |
| CB | Cam Miller | 91.02 (No. 239 NATL.) |
| NICKEL | Jacobie Henderson OR Al-Shadee Salaam | 83.15 (No. 1314 NATL.) 85.83 (No. 583 NATL.) |
| S | Jett Elad | 80.27 (No. 1920 NATL.) |
| S | Kaj Sanders | 88.76 (No. 495 NATL.) |
| POSITION | PLAYER | HIGH SCHOOL INDUSTRY RATING |
| CB | Tank Pearson | 82.80 (No. 133 JUCO) |
| CB | Michael Mack II | N/A (Unranked) |
| NICKEL | Rickey Hyatt Jr. | 85.93 (No. 745 NATL.) |
| S | Adonis Williams Jr. | 73.0 (Not Ranked) |
| S | DJ Walker | 84.0 (Not Ranked) |
While Rutgers had significantly higher ranked recruits on offense, the defense is a little different.
Despite having two unranked recruits starting along the defensive line, Ohio’s other two linemen were similarly ranked to the three ranked on Rutgers side. Only one linebacker among both programs is ranked and it’s former four-star Moses Walker. Finally, both program’s have solid ranked recruits in the secondary, with Rutgers having a little bit of an edge.
It’s no secret that the Scarlet Knights recruit a lot better than Ohio, and it shows above. However it’s always interesting to see some highly ranked recruits fall through the cracks and end up at lower levels, while some low ranked guys move their way up to the big time.
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