Why did Rutgers football make 4-star Jaelyne Matthews’ cutdown last week?
On Friday, Jaelyne Matthews announced a cutdown to nine programs in his recruitment. For an offensive tackle considered to be among the best in the 2025 recruiting class, it is a significant step in his recruitment.
Rutgers football was among the nine programs to make the list, which represents the first cutdown of his recruitment. In September, Matthews re-opened his recruitment after previously being committed to Penn State for several months earlier this year.
Strong, impressive and agile, Matthews is a 6-foot-5, 273-pound offensive tackle from Toms River North (Toms River, N.J.), Earlier this year, he committed to participate in the Under Armour All-America Game that would follow his senior season.
On Friday, he spoke about why Rutgers made the top nine list in his recruitment.
“They started this recruiting process for me,” Matthews told Rutgers Wire.
“I feel extremely comfortable with the coaches and it’s in my state so it’s familiar.”
Rutgers joins an elite group of programs in the nine released by Matthews. The other eight programs are Georgia, Miami, Penn State, Tennessee, Michigan, Maryland, Texas and Ohio State.
A number of programs including Boston College, Colorado, Louisville, Miami, Nebraska, Syracuse, Texas A&M, Vanderbilt and West Virginia among others.
The decision to not include Colorado is interesting, given that they offered Matthews in September shortly after be opened up his recruitment again.
Two weeks ago, Matthews was on hand to see the Big Ten regular season finale between Maryland at Rutgers. Both programs would make his cutdown.
“They built relationships with me – I built trust with them. I love the coaches, (their) styles and the coaching staffs,” Matthews said.
“And who doesn’t like Old Bay or Wawa?”
