By Harry Minium
Ricky Rahne has yet to coach a game for Old Dominion, so it's far too early to judge his skills as an on-field head football coach. But the results are already in on his recruiting prowess and so far, he's done nothing but hit grand slams.
Last February, with a little help from ODU's previous coaching staff, the first-year coach signed the best recruiting class in ODU history, as rated by the 247Sports recruiting service. The class he signed in December was again rated the best in school history, and that came in even though ODU did not play in 2020.
And on Wednesday, he announced the addition of five transfers from other Football Bowl Subdivision programs. They not only added size and talent, but a ton of experience, including championship experience, to a team that will be among the youngest in the nation.
Three are from Power 5 schools, one played in the 2018 College Football Championship game and another was the MVP of the 2018 American Athletic Conference championship game.
Yes, the football season is eight months away, but this was a day for every ODU fan to rejoice and get a little excited. The Monarchs got a lot better this week. The fact that so many good players from nationally-known programs chose ODU speaks well not only for Rahne and his staff, but also for the University.
More help could be on the way before the Monarchs open next season at Wake Forest. Rahne says he and his staff are evaluating high school players to sign in February and hope to add more transfers at the end of the spring.
The most ballyhooed of the transfers is quarterback Darriel (D.J.) Mack Jr., a 6-foot-3, 230-pound junior who came from Central Florida and attended Norfolk's Norview High School. ODU has two pretty good quarterbacks in Hayden Wolff and Stone Smartt, but neither has the big game experience that Mack gained at UCF.
As a redshirt freshman in 2018, he played in ten games and started the last three and was the Most Outstanding Player of the American Athletic Conference Championship game, when he completed 19 of 27 passes for 348 yards and two touchdowns in a victory over Memphis. He also rushed for four touchdowns.
It was the 25th victory in a row for UCF, which lost by eight to LSU a few weeks later in the Fiesta Bowl.
Talk about big-game experience.
"Obviously, a guy who was an MVP in a conference championship game is an exciting piece to be able to add at quarterback, especially a guy from this area," Rahne said. "Not all of the great players from the area are going to want to come here. But the guys who are great fits, we would like to bring some of those guys home. We're very excited about D.J. He's a very athletic, dynamic passer.
"The thing I was most impressed with when we were recruiting him, and this is a credit to how he was developed in high school, is that he has a great football IQ. Obviously, that was something we had to make sure he had because our quarterbacks make a lot of decisions on a play-by-play basis."
Asked about his quarterback hierarchy for the spring, Rahne said: "We don't have one. We're going to let it play itself out. That's why we're so excited about spring practice. We want competition.
"I played that position and too often that job is almost gifted to guys. That's a position where we've got to compete. Whoever starts has got to earn the respect of his teammates, the respect of the coaches. I'm excited about that competition."
It's difficult to say which of the other four transfers is better than the other, so let's take them in alphabetic order:
Trey Blount, a 6-foot-2, 200-pound wide receiver, played in four games for Georgia this season and started against Kentucky. He appeared in 46 games for the Bulldogs and had four receptions for 52 yards. The Atlanta native was a four-star recruit in high school and he has two years left of eligibility. In 2017, he started in the SEC championship game and played in the 2018 national championship game, which Georgia lost to Alabama.
D'Vion Harris, a 6-2, 245-pound defensive end who transferred from Minnesota, where he played in one game as a freshman. Ranked the tenth-best player in Missouri as a high school senior by ESPN, he was the All-Metro Defensive Player of the Year in St. Louis, an area almost twice as large at Hampton Roads. He had 263 tackles and 20 sacks at Lutheran High and has four years of eligibility left.
Tyran Hunt, a 6-7, 312-pound offensive lineman transferred from Maryland, where he played eight games in two seasons. Hunt is coming home. He attended Southampton High in Courtland, Virginia, located an hour west of Norfolk. He was a consensus three-star recruit at Southampton and turned down Virginia Tech, Virginia and Syracuse to go to Maryland. He has two years of eligibility left and is a mature player. He redshirted in 2017, played in 2018 and 2019 and did not play this past season.
Robert Kennedy, a 5-10, 183-pound safety, transferred from East Carolina, where he played in five games this past season. He had 13 tackles, including seven in ECU's season opener against UCF.
He helped lead Lackawanna Junior College to the 2019 national championship game. The Jeannette, Pennsylvania, native had 34 tackles, four interceptions, 3.5 sacks and nine pass breakups as a sophomore in junior college. He has two years of eligibility left.
All five transfers are enrolled in classes, which began Tuesday, and will soon begin winter workouts with their teammates. Spring practice begins in March and will end by early April.
The transfers will be joined by five true freshmen who enrolled early and also began classes Tuesday:
Jordan Bly, a wide receiver from Charlotte and the son of Dre' Bly, the former Western Branch High, North Carolina and NFL star who coaches at UNC. Bly was a three-star recruit and was rated ODU's third-best recruit by 247Sports. Bly (5-10, 178 pounds) turned down Pitt, Charlotte, Florida International, as well as a number of highly-rated academic schools, including Yale.
Tahj El, a 6-2, 187-pound safety also from Charlotte who was Bly's teammate at Myers Park High. He was unrated by 247Sports but that's almost certainly because Myers Park did not play football in the fall.
Jalen McCain, a 5-10, 178-pound cornerback from Bowie, Maryland, who was the highest-rated member of the December class. He turned down offers from Boston College, North Carolina and Maryland.
Jon-Luke Peaker, a 5-9, 187-pound running back from Philadelphia who was another big recruiting win for the Monarchs. He turned down Temple, Army and Coastal Carolina. He did not play this past season as Philadelphia high schools did not play. But his highlights from 2019 are impressive.
Jahaad Scales, a 6-foot, 185-pound safety from Kernersville, North Carolina, who is a three-star prospect who turned down Charlotte and Navy to sign with ODU.
This means ODU will have ten new players in camp when spring practice starts. "That's going to make for a lot of competition," Rahne said.
Rahne said that having players who've competed at the highest level will help inspire ODU's other players to work harder.
"They will be able to reinforce when we talk to them about hard work. D.J. has played in a conference championship game and been the MVP. Trey has played in national championship games. Tyran has played in multiple Big Ten games, including a game against the No. 1 team in the country. Robert played for a national championship in junior college.
"They're going to able to see these guys have won a bunch of games, and they're going to tell our players this is the sacrifice it's going to take, this is the hard work it's going to take. I think that's really going to be a key. It's one thing for me to say something to our players. It's another for one of their teammates to say, 'he's right, this is what it's going to take for us to get there. I know because I've been to the mountain top.' "
ODU had some players transfer elsewhere and Rahne said that likely will occur at every school in the country from now on.
"It's a concern for me because we want as much experience as we can possibly get," he said. "But I also want guys who want to be here.
"In order to maximize your potential, you've got to make sure you're 100 percent bought into where you're going to school. If you're not bought in 100 percent, it's going to be hard to coach you and it's going to be hard for you to get any better.
"Ultimately, that's what I want for each and every player, for us to maximize their potential. I want guys who know this is a great place to develop, that our coaching staff is going to get absolutely the most out of them.
"Guys transferring, that's part of the landscape now. We're going to have to deal with it. Ultimately, we want to build such great relationships with our players that they all want to stay here. But there are always going to be some guys who don't feel that way. At that point, I wish them the best of luck and have no ill will."
Some schools have radically altered their recruiting and are bringing in far more transfers than high school players. Rahne said that trend concerns him.
"I want to make it very clear that we're still going to recruit high schools and we're going to recruit them very hard," Rahne said. "I know there are some places that are drifting away from recruiting high school players. I don't believe in that.
"The transfer process is part of college football and it's here to stay. We are probably going to get a couple of transfers every year and we're probably going to lose a couple of guys every year.
"You can bemoan what that means for our game and our society or you can adjust and see it as an opportunity to make your team better."
And so far, ODU has gotten better.
Contact Minium: hminium@odu.edu
Minium: Ricky Rahne Continues to Impress as a Recruiter, Adding Five Highly-Regarded FBS Transfers
