2025 New Jersey OL Jaelyne Matthews commits to Rutgers Football
Rutgers Football has added another offensive lineman and its highest-rated recruit to its 2025 recruiting class by landing a commitment from 2025 tackle Jaelyne Matthews of Toms River North High School in New Jersey. Matthews is rated as a 5.8 four-star and is ranked as the 13th-best player in New Jersey on Rivals.
Matthews is the Scarlet Knights' 22nd commit of the 2025 class and it remains in the top 10 in Rivals' Team Rankings at 7th nationally, though it will change as the higher-rated recruits commit later in the process. This also marks the third day in a row head coach Greg Schiano and staff have received an offensive line commit for 2025.
Rutgers managed to pull a bit of an upset in Matthews' recruitment, as following his official visit with the Scarlet Knights during the first weekend of June, he released a top three of Georgia, Miami (FL), and Tennessee.
Matthews' commitment adds another page to a whirlwind recruitment, as he originally had verbally committed to Penn State in January of 2023. He later decommitted in September and reopened his recruitment, releasing a top nine featuring Rutgers in December.
After first receiving an offer from the coaching staff all the way back in his freshman year of high school in 2021, he visited the campus unofficially on numerous occasions before setting up his official visit for June. Matthews was also originally set to officially visit Syracuse during the first weekend in June, but opted to visit the Scarlet Knights instead.
All but one of Matthews' 28 offers came from Power Four programs - Liberty being the lone outlier - and had initially set up official visits to each of his top three schools. However, he never made it to Miami this past weekend and his visits to Tennessee and Georgia were canceled. Rutgers ended up being the only program Matthews officially visited, which set the stage for a verbal commitment on the Banks.
Matthews' likelihood to commit to Rutgers has fluctuated throughout the entire process, as he was reportedly close to committing after his official visit, then releasing his top three schools without the Scarlet Knights days later. It remains to be seen if this is the final page of his recruitment, but with his verbal commitment it will be shut down for at least the forseeable future.
On the field, Matthews projects as an offensive tackle with great size and fluidity at 6-foot-7 and 335 pounds, as well as having plus athleticism on the exterior of the offensive line. He will work with offensive line coach Pat Flaherty, who did great work improving the Scarlet Knights up front in his first season back at Rutgers.
Suddenly, however, the Scarlet Knights' offensive line group in the 2025 class has become a bit crowded. Matthews is the sixth offensive line commit of the class, as he joins Joshua Blackston, Gerrick Gordon, Chris Vigna, Jayden Elijah, and N-Kye Wynn. He also becomes the third offensive line commit from New Jersey alongside Elijah and Vigna, and it remains to be seen how the group will shake out once they get on campus.
Either way, Matthews is a big get as Schiano continues to try and convince New Jersey's top talent to stay home.
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