BREAKING: 3-star OL Isaac Sowells Jr. commits to NC State
Isaac Sowells Jr., NC State’s top center recruit, committed to the program Thursday evening during a ceremony at his school. The three-star offensive lineman has been at the top of the Wolfpack’s offensive line recruiting board for months.
After taking a patient approach to his recruiting process, the Louisville (KY) Male High landed on NC State as his collegiate home. Sowells’ commitment is a significant win for the Pack. Kentucky, the home-state school for the lineman, made a strong push in his recruitment.
He picked the Wolfpack over offers from the Wildcats, Miami, South Carolina and Louisville. NC State established itself as the team to beat earlier this year and maintained that momentum, holding off pushes from Power Four programs all over the country.
Sowells is one of the top center prospects in the country at 6-1.5, 290 pounds. The Pack staff sees him as the next lineman to continue on the program’s outstanding legacy at that position.
“As soon as you walk into the building, you see the Remington, which is a very sacred award,” Sowells said after his official visit. “And they’ve had a winner. A lot of schools can’t say they have, so just their tradition of putting centers in the NFL and having these guys win these accolades is very enticing.”
NC State offered Sowells, who goes by the nickname “Spike,” Aug. 2023. Offensive line coach Garett Tujague maintained constant contact from there, and the lineman eventually visited for a game day. The mutual interest continued to ramp up from there.
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He returned to campus for the Pack’s Jan. 20 junior day and again for a spring practice before wrapping up his official visit schedule in Raleigh June 21-23. Sowells also took trips to South Carolina, Kentucky and Miami, but those schools did not overcome the momentum NC State built over the past 11 months.
Tujague put a lot of time and resources into building a genuine connection with the three-star center. During his visits, he also forged friendships with quarterback commit Will Wilson, tight end commit Gus Ritchey and offensive line commit Michael Gibbs. Those bonds helped lead to Sowells’s eventual commitment.
“We had a great time, all of us hanging out,” Sowells said. “Got to talk some ball and just hang out with the guys. While we were hanging out, Will was actually watching film on the couch, and I thought that was pretty enticing to see a quarterback who’s really locked in like that.”
Sowells is the second offensive lineman in the class alongside Gibbs and the No. 16 commit overall. The On3 Industry Ranking considers him the No. 491 prospect nationally, the No. 42 interior offensive lineman in the country and the No. 4 recruit in Kentucky.
