Midwest Spotlight: Five prospects on the rise
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Recruiting at the Power Five level slows way down in a prospect’s senior season as most programs are looking to put the finishing touches on their classes with targets already identified. A few prospects, however, do see new interest come through in the final months before Signing Day. We highlight several in the Midwest today as we look around the region for prospects on the rise.
Eichenberg was certainly not unknown coming into his senior season. Quite the contrary, as he has been ranked in the Rivals250 since debuting as a four-star following junior season. Eichenberg’s offer list, however, was not quite as strong as other prospects ranked around him.
While Boston College and Duke had offered, his recruitment was mostly regional, but lacked some of the traditional powers from the Midwest. After concluding the first half of his season, however, Eichenberg popped new offers from both Michigan and Ohio State. Now the question becomes, will Boston College be able to hold onto his commitment? It will be interesting to see which other schools join the pursuit. He has an older brother currently playing at Notre Dame.
At 6-foot-6 and 215 pounds with the explosiveness to stay on the outside in college, it may be surprising that Morgan did not hold a Power Five offer prior to his senior season. The fast-rising senior significantly bulked up in the offseason, however, and had to miss college camps due to a broken collarbone. Morgan is now making up for lost time with 20 receptions for 338 yards and eight touchdowns through six games. New offers have come from Cincinnati, Missouri, Ole Miss, Pittsburgh and Virginia since mid-September and schools like Georgia, Michigan State and Ohio State are keeping close tabs. Look for Morgan to be among the most intriguing prospects from the Midwest down the stretch.
Randolph was starting to develop some clarity in his recruitment as the summer wound down. He had identified a top three of Illinois, Purdue and Wyoming and was ready to start scheduling his official visits. The start of his season, however, brought with it a wave of new scholarship offers from Indiana, Iowa, Michigan State and Virginia.
The 2017 season was Randolph’s first playing football, so it comes as no surprise that he has seen a senior season bounce in scholarship offers. He has now hit the reset button on recruiting and is considering the new offers while also being open to more schools joining the mix.
When we ranked Moore as a three-star prospect during the off-season, we did so even though he had yet to land any scholarship offers. Three-stars are considered Power Five-caliber prospects, and we had seen enough from the Chicago native to know he had the ability to play at that level.
Moore is an intriguing combination of size and athleticism, but he is raw and plays in the Chicago charter school system, which is not known for producing much college football talent, and thus does not attract a lot of college football coaches. Moore finally landed his first offer in June from Wyoming. Central Michigan and New Mexico joined up over the summer, and then, on Oct. 4, Moore landed his first Power Five offer from his home-state Illinois Fighting Illini.
There will be dozens of 2020 prospects across the region landing their first Power Five offers as a result of junior season performance, and Hartwig was one of the first to see his recruitment take a sharp uptick. Hartwig landed his first scholarship offer following Week 4 of the high school football season from the home-state Indiana Hoosiers. Additional offers from Cincinnati, Purdue, Ball State and Vanderbilt have since followed.
One of the intriguing aspects of Hartwig’s game is that he could legitimately project anywhere across the offensive line. He has the length and agility to where right tackle is a possibility. He’s strong enough to battle with defensive tackles on the interior and this season he is primarily lining up at center for Zionsville.