Mike Farrell Breaks Down WVU’s Current 2023 Recruiting Class

As I embark on my exciting journey to dive deep into everything West Virginia football with WVSportsNow.com, I’ll start with an assessment of the current 2023 recruiting class.

I’ve been intrigued by West Virginia recruiting for many reasons. When I started, it was Don Nehlen and then some very interesting and exciting classes under Rich Rodriguez. WVU has a tough geography to deal with for recruiting, with only 1 or 2 in state players worth taking a year. They’ve had to be creative, whether it’s head to the Southeast, try to own Maryland/DC or hit the Midwest.

In the 2023 class, they have been all over the map and the sales pitch is tough with Neal Brown in the hot seat all season and now recruiting against negatively as a coach with one year leftover. But even with all of that, it’s a solid class.

The strength is clearly on defense if you ask me. LB Josiah Trotter and DE James Heard are elite and I like DT Justin Benton and CB Jordan Jackson. WVU will need to work hard to keep this class from being poached as we’ve seen happen recently at Pitt, but if they can keep it together there is high end talent.

The WR class is excellent as well, but schools are trying to flip 4-star Rodney Gallagher (mainly Penn State), but if they can hold onto him with Traylon Ray it’s a great 1-2 punch.

QB Sean Boyle is a bit of a reach and there is a lack of depth at DB and RB to me, but overall this is a really good and surprising class for WVU. Anytime they can sniff the national top 30 is great with their recruiting geography disadvantages. But to do it with a coach under fire? That’s impressive.