The Class of 2024 Update: Unleash the Preview
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As we move into Mid-March in the heart of basketball season, we at Prep Redzone Dakotas never stop exposing football prospects year round. We bring in March with the incoming juniors, the Class of 2024 which from our eyes is…
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Continue ReadingAs we move into Mid-March in the heart of basketball season, we at Prep Redzone Dakotas never stop exposing football prospects year round. We bring in March with the incoming juniors, the Class of 2024 which from our eyes is a relatively deep class, that has a lot of potential to really show even more in their upcoming junior seasons.
By the Numbers, and The Watchlist
From our last 2021 update, we went from 89 total prospects to adding nearly 100 more prospects into our 2024 prospect database to 182, which is the largest junior-class to date since we started this site back in October 2020. Now the tough part is our 2024 watchlist. That list went up 92 prospects from 69 prospects. When add a prospect to our watch list it means two things. 1) You are on our radar from the film we found on you from a recent season, but you haven’t uploaded your 2021 film as of yet so we couldn’t get a firm evaluation on your improvement from 2020 to 2021. We also take a handful of referrals of prospects handed over by high school staffs we know across North Dakota and South Dakota, that have blossomed on the field. 2) It shows that we see your talent, and we want to see more of it on tape, which is our baseline to ranking football prospects! Uploading your film after your football season is crucial into getting recruited and seen by college programs across the region, so the sooner this Spring you can pull that film from 2021, the sooner it will help you climb into our rankings in the next 3-5 months before the 2022 season starts.
A New Top Five
The #1 spot across the Dakotas still belongs to Brandon Valley (SD) offensive linemen Navarro Schunke Navarro Schunke 6'6" | 290 lbs | OL Brandon Valley | 2024 State SD , who has seen some of the earliest interest in the Dakotas from Power Five programs and now has created a highlight to put even more schools on his radar. Watch it below, trust me you will fall in love with his sophomore tape. Who else rounds out the top five? Let’s just say North Dakota and South Dakota is loaded in the 2024 class at the WR position:
2) Isiah St. Romain Isiah St. Romain 6'1" | 170 lbs | WR Williston | 2024 State ND | WR | Williston (ND) | So Tape
3) Jaxsen Grevengoed Jaxsen Grevengoed 5'10" | 185 lbs | WR Sioux Falls Roosevelt | 2024 State SD | WR| Sioux Falls Roosevelt (SD) | So Tape
4) Jack Smith Jack Smith 6'0" | 185 lbs | WR Sioux Falls Lincoln | 2024 State SD | WR | Sioux Falls Lincoln (SD) | So Tape
5) Tate Schafer Tate Schafer 6'1" | 180 lbs | QB Sioux Falls Lincoln | 2024 State SD | QB | Sioux Falls Lincoln (SD) | So Tape
We put the amount of wide receivers in the top five for a reason, as I believe all four of them have great position for success at the Division I level in the future. Another update, former #4 overall prospect linebacker Isaiah Favors transferred just recently from Dakota Valley, to Bishop Heelan Catholic just over the SD border in Sioux City, Iowa making him now an Iowa prospect.
Navarro’s Sophomore Tape:
From a Top 20 to a Top 90 + Coming off the 2024 Watchlist Soon
We started last time with just a top 20 list of the best prospects in the Dakotas. This time around we moved the nettle to over 90 prospects ranked in our Dakotas Class of 2024. That list will only get even bigger with the 90+ prospects we have placed into our 2024 watchlist who I am sure will have show off some sufficient sophomore tape and hopefully will blossom into having a solid upcoming junior campaign. Here are a ten names from that 2024 Watchlist I see that potential churning up our 2024 recruiting board:
Nic Gaspar | WR | Dell Rapids St. Marys (SD)
Tayden Nave Tayden Nave ATH SF Roosvelt | 2024 State SD | ATH | Sioux Falls Roosevelt (SD)
Logan Rist Logan Rist 6'0" | 185 lbs | RB Des Lacs Burlington | 2024 State ND | RB | Des Lacs-Burlington (ND)
Dylan Satkunam Dylan Satkunam 6'0" | OL Fargo Davies | 2024 ND | OL | Fargo Davies (ND)
Jovi Wolf Jovi Wolf WR Chester Area | 2024 State SD | WR | Chester Area (SD)
Cade Kaiser Cade Kaiser 6'2" | 185 lbs | WR Pierre T.F. Riggs | 2024 State SD | WR | Pierre (SD)
Carter Randall Carter Randall 5'9" | 170 lbs | LB McCook Central-Montrose | 2024 State SD | LB | McCook Central-Montrose (SD)
Cody Slykhuis Cody Slykhuis ATH WWSSC | 2024 SD | ATH | Woonsocket-Wessington Springs-Sanborn Central (SD)
Sawyer Thompson Sawyer Thompson 5'11" | 180 lbs | QB Lemmon-McIntosh | 2024 SD | QB | Lemmon-McIntosh (SD)
Cole Zabel Cole Zabel 5'9" | 150 lbs | ATH Herreid-Selby | 2024 State SD | LB | Herreid-Selby (SD)
Content Coming Soon
The Stockrisers- Who made the biggest jumps from the 2024 watchlist onto our 2024 rankings? We will have a few stockriser articles, mixed in with position stockrisers as well!
The Newcomers- With hitting the gas strongly with almost 100 new prospects to our 2024 rankings and watchlist, you will learn about the skillsets of plenty of prospects that are new to our radar and why they caught our attention from the last update. This will be a multi article series.
Positional Breakdowns- We will do our absolute best to explain why we had prospects positioned where they are by our positional rankings.
New Series, Small Town Standouts- With my ongoing emphasis on scouting small town South Dakota and North Dakota, we will show off some lists of prospects that caught our attention from the small towns of both states under 5000 people, as it doesn’t matter where you come from to us at Prep Redzone Dakotas, there is so much talent from all over the Dakotas that goes untapped and we will cover a lot of them!