It may be a slow time for most college football news and items, but the WVU football Recruiting Twitter account provided some much-needed fire.
National Signing Day, both of them, have come and gone but there is still a lot of pitching going on. Football programs around the country are offering scholarships to players while also providing promises that may not always come to fruition.
Different programs are fighting against each other for the same prized prospects. According to Rutgers Director of Recruiting communications Omar Hales, the WVU football program is going after the same recruits as his team.
Well, this is college football. This isn’t a rarity, it’s actually commonplace. Not many high school football players will be looking at just one program with laser focus. They want to explore their options and that is perfectly fine.
Before word got around too much about this Rutgers accusation, the WVU football Recruiting Twitter account stepped up to that plate and politely reminded Hales that West Virginia is the superior program to the Scarlet Knights.
Thanks for the offer Omar but we’ve managed just fine on our own #HailWV pic.twitter.com/5LEKMgcDxl
— West Virginia FB Recruiting (@WVUFBRecruiting) February 14, 2018
The last time the Mountaineers played Rutgers was 2011 before the Big East was officially disbanded. The Scarlet Knights joined the Big Ten, which is still hard to comprehend, and the WVU football team became members of the Big 12.
West Virginia, and most other Big East teams, made Rutgers the perennial whipping boy. The Scarlet Knights were at or near the bottom of the conference, except for some of the final years under Greg Schiano. Just last year, the Mountaineers won a recruiting battle with Rutgers as Darius Stills flipped from the Scarlet Knights to the WVU football team. His brother, Dante, joined the 2018 class.
It’s nice to be reminded that West Virginia owns Rutgers, and still does apparently, in the world of social media. That also shows how much recruiting has changed in recent years. More often than not, the first impression a young recruit will see of a college program is through the team’s social media page. By using creative gifs and explosive graphic arts, college programs can stick in the minds of teenagers.
Next: Marquel Blackwell hired to coach WVU RBs
It may not mean much, but this was an offseason challenge won by the WVU football team. West Virginia should be able to stake claim to these recruits supposedly being sought by both the Mountaineers and Scarlet Knights.