Northwestern inks 18 players on National Signing Day

As expected, Northwestern signed 18 players Wednesday on National Signing Day, all of whom were previously verbally committed to NU.

The December Signing Day is the earlier of the two signing days, though the December date has quickly become the true signing day for Northwestern, a program that typically finishes its recruiting relatively early and doesn’t have many players commit on signing day itself.

Here is the positional breakdown of Northwestern’s signees.

Here is the state-by-state breakdown of Northwestern’s signees.

Northwestern’s recent signing days are a microcosm of the program’s recruiting. Northwestern, which offers scholarships to fewer players than most power conference schools, is intentional about who it recruits, and there isn’t much drama in the recruiting process. That’s not to say Northwestern doesn’t recruit players who are verbally committed elsewhere (NU does), or that Northwestern commits don’t ever de-commit (they sometimes do). Pat Fitzgerald has said before that he and the program place great emphasis on a commitment, though, and it does seem that a commitment to Northwestern is usually meaningful.

Pat Fitzgerald will likely try to add more players to fill out the class, as he did last year, but most of the class is now signed. 247 Sports has Northwestern’s class ranked as the No. 44 class in the country and the No. 11 class in the Big Ten, and the average player rating is .8586. Here’s how this year’s class compares to past Northwestern classes.

This year’s class (so far) is about the size of a typical Northwestern class; some classes have had more players, some have fewer. It’s important to note that most schools aren’t done with their classes, so Northwestern’s rankings could decline a bit once more players commit elsewhere.

Here are individual breakdowns on the signees.