Rockets’ 2013 football recruiting class rated No. 1 in MAC
By Paul Helgren : February 7th, 2013
UT Head Football Coach Matt Campbell unveiled his 2013 recruiting class yesterday, and for the fourth year in a row the Rockets have signed a class rated as one of the best in the Mid-American Conference.
Both Scout.com and Rivals.com rank Toledo’s 2013 recruiting class as No. 1 in the MAC. A year ago, both recruiting services ranked Toledo’s recruiting class as No. 2 in the conference. In 2011, UT’s recruiting class was ranked No. 1 by both services, and in 2010 Toledo’s class was ranked No. 1 in the MAC by Rivals and No. 2 by Scout.
Superior recruiting has paid off for the Rockets, who have appeared in three consecutive bowl games. Toledo was 9-4 in 2012 and played in the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl.
The Rockets added 29 new players to the program, 19 of whom are ranked as either four-star or three-star recruits by at least one recruiting service, breaking the previous school record of 14 set in 2010 and 2011.
The list of 29 also includes six preferred walk-ons who will not sign national letters of intent, as well as three players — Robert Zimmerman, Boston Mathews and Logan Woodside — who signed letters last semester and now are enrolled at the University.
Campbell, who enters his second full season as head coach of the Rockets, concurred that this is Toledo’s best and deepest recruiting class in his five years at UT.
“From top to bottom, this is a class of high-caliber players who have high-caliber character,” said Campbell, who is 10-4 as head coach of the Rockets after serving for three seasons as UT’s offensive coordinator. “These are players who love the game of football, come from programs with great football tradition, and who have committed themselves academically.
“Most of this class has been committed to us for many months now so we’ve really gotten to know these young men well. They have really bought into the vision of Toledo football and how they can raise the standards of this football program. We just graduated an outstanding senior class; this class needs to be better than the one that left. That’s how you bring your program to a higher level.”
Toledo’s 2013 class includes 16 players from the Buckeye State, including four from northwest Ohio. Other states represented in the class are Maryland, Michigan, Illinois, South Carolina, Florida, Kentucky and Virginia.
“We will recruit anywhere we can get a player who can help us,” Campbell said. “But overall, the bulk of our recruiting still occurs within a four-hour radius of campus.”
Read more and see videos of the recruits here.