Photo Credit: Harley Taylor
The nature of recruiting is very iterative with coaches adapting and continually evaluating to find the hidden gem that everyone has overlooked. One player who has been the benefit of that is 6'3'' CB Levi Wentz, a 2020 recruit who has seen an explosion of interest recently after playing football for the first time this past fall.
Wentz has seen his recruitment take off this month as he has received offers from Navy and Old Dominion while taking official visits to those 2 schools plus Army over the past 3 weekends. Wentz told us that those 3 are his top 3 "as of now" (over offers from Ivy League schools among others), but that could be subject to change given the interest he's receiving from bigger programs.
Power 5 schools have been showing interest in Wentz including Virginia Tech, with the Hokies being in communication with him over the past few days. Wentz told us that defensive coordinator Justin Hamilton and CBs coach Ryan Smith are among the Virginia Tech staffers that have reached out to Wentz in recent days right before the beginning of the next dead period and days before National Signing Day.
Though the Hokies haven't decided to offer Wentz yet, it's clear that Virginia Tech is definitely considering it. If they do, the Hokies would clearly be a top contender to land the Pennsylvania cornerback.
"I would be very honored if they did but I am not sure," Wentz said. "It is obviously an amazing opportunity and I would be blessed if they did."
In addition to Tech, Pittsburgh and West Virginia has also shown interest in Wentz and may be looking at extending a scholarship offer while Penn State and the aforementioned Panthers have both extended preferred walk-on offers.
Wentz's background is playing basketball, but he told us that he "always to play" football and this was the first year that his father allowed him to do so. Within this year, Wentz showed that he has the potential to develop into a really good cornerback down the line as he had 45 tackles, 9 pass breakups, 2 interceptions, and 3 blocked kicks as he shared with us.
The tape does show at times that he only has a year of experience, but his size, length, basketball athleticism, and natural ball skills are all reasons to believe he has the potential to develop into a really good player with the stats backing up his potential to become a quality contributor at the highest level of college football.
Levi Wentz has emerged as a name to watch and Virginia Tech looks to add at least one more cornerback to their 2020 class. The question that remains though is will the Hokies (or any other Power 5 schools) decide to offer him before National Signing Day or give him reason to delay signing till after Wednesday?
