Rutgers Football Tale of the Tape: 2025 four-star LB DJ McClary

Last night, Greg Schiano and company flipped four star New Jersey linebacker prospect DJ McClary. The defensive star is rated as the fourth best player in New Jersey and has become Rutgers second commit in the New Jersey top five. However, that begs the question, why is he rated so high? What skills does he have that stand out above the rest? Here are a few qualities the linebacker has that makes him a top player in the state.

1. Pursuit

During his Junior season alone McClary had 95 tackles, 15 tackles for loss, and two sacks. The thing is, with such a strong player on one side of the ball offenses often attempt to run away from that player and that was true during his time at Henry Snyder. A large number of his tackles come from him tracking a running back across the field and flowing with the play. The point is that he always seems to be near the ball when the play is over and that positioning is a great asset to have in itself. In relation to his pursuit, his ability to fire into the back field and split lineman to bring down the ball carrier should not go unnoticed. Many of his tackles for loss came from him tracking a run to the outside and shooting the gap between the moving lineman right as the play began to develop. His ability to track a play combined with his athleticism to shoot the gap is what led to many of those tackles for loss.

2. Tackle Security

Another thing to note about his game is that when he got his hands on the ball carrier they very rarely, if ever, slipped off. He approaches his man with good tackling form, positioning his shoulders low and getting a good wrap on his opponent before bringing him down. Good technique is definitely something that the Rutgers coaching staff will stress when he gets to college so it helps that he already has a lot of that.

3. Consistently attacks the football

In many of his run down tackles, he drops the arm that is on the side of the football like a tomahawk trying to knock the ball out. When the offensive player is coming at him, he drops his head right underneath where the football is being carried, just like Schiano preaches. He is always trying to get the ball back to his offense and that is something that could be huge for Rutgers in the years to come.

To support me and my work please follow @andrew78rice on X!