Virginia Tech made a major, dual-sport splash on the recruiting trail this weekend as elite wrestler and intriguing DE Jimmy Mullen committed to the Hokies.
I'm blown away by the amazing schools and wrestling/football programs that have recruited me. At the end of the day there was only one right choice. I will be continuing my academic and athletic career playing football and wrestling for the Hokies at Virginia Tech. 🦃 ❤️🤞🏼 pic.twitter.com/Vzo4ydzPB3
— Jimmy Mullen (@jamesmullen23) October 22, 2022
Mullen is ranked as the #1 heavyweight wrestler in the 2023 class by FloWrestling while being a top 10 pound-for-pound wrestler in the 2023 class by FloWrestling and Intermat, two of the leading collegiate wrestling publications. Mullen is also a three-star DE who is ranked as the 26th best football recruit in New Jersey by Rivals and 32nd best in New Jersey by On3.
Mullen had loads of wrestling offers with Penn State, Oklahoma State, Michigan, North Carolina, and many more heavily involved on that front in addition to VT Wrestling. Additionally, Mullen had four football offers from Rutgers, Temple, Kent State, and Army with a source previously telling me that VT Wrestling would be more than welcome to Mullen also playing football which appears to be the case at least for now.
This is a massive addition on the wrestling front as Mullen has the type of elite talent that could even allow him to come in and push Hunter Catka next year at the HWT spot even with Catka being a former elite recruit himself. Even if he does redshirt, there's no doubt that Mullen looks like a pillar of future teams who has the potential to exceed what even the best HWT in VT history Ty Walz did during his time wrestling for the Hokies.
He's also an intriguing potential football addition and though it is rare to see a dual-sport athlete between football and wrestling at this level, Mullen fits the exact mold that can work as a heavyweight who at 6'2'' and 250 pounds per Rivals, has good size for football and room to grow to not worry about weight cuts and whatnot on the wrestling front.
Regardless, this is another major commitment for Tony Robie and company who has seemed to make it usual for the Hokies to land 1 or 2 of the top 10 wrestling recruits in America each cycle along with multiple others in the top 25-50. Now it's assumed to be a wrestling scholarship but if he does play both, this likely will be a scholarship that actually counts against football as long as he's playing football per my current understanding of NCAA rules on dual-sport scholarship athletes.
