Former top Rutgers recruit to transfer
There was one 4-star recruit in Rutgers’ 2015 class.
Now, there’s none.
Freshman defensive end Marques Ford will transfer from the program and pursue other options. After a year in Piscataway, the Florida native said it just wasn’t the right fit.
“I wasn’t comfortable with the school, basically,” Ford said in a phone interview with NJ Advance Media on Sunday. “Not from the get go, but over time I just wasn’t comfortable.”
The move, he said, had nothing to do with the hiring of new coach Chris Ash. Ford did say that he knew he was going to transfer from the program following the firing of Kyle Flood at season’s end.
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He redshirted in 2015 in an effort to add weight to play defensive end.
Ford came to Rutgers with a slew of SEC offers. He actually was originally committed to Tennessee, but he opened up his recruitment because the program over-signed. He told NJ.com that he wasn’t sure where he would end up, but that Rutgers didn’t restrict any of his options.
Minnesota, Nebraska and Wisconsin all made bids to land Ford before he committed to Rutgers. All three programs, however, brought on new head coaches since his recruitment.
Ford’s transfer marked the first since Ash took over in the beginning of the month.