Early Saturday morning, the Rutgers Scarlet Knights wrestling team landed a commitment from class of 2018 wrestler Max Wright. He is originally from Ohio, but is now currently living in Flowery Branch, Georgia.

Wright is a 197-pound wrestler who attended Air Force Academy Prep School this past year and will still have all four years of eligibility remaining for the Scarlet Knights.

The Knight Report caught up with Rutgers newest wrestling commit to discuss his decision.

“I chose Rutgers because I have the goal of being an All-American,” Wright told TKR. “I knew I needed to surround myself with teammates that have the same goals as me. Rutgers has a great wrestling program, that’s on the rise, and I felt that it was the best place for me to achieve my goals in all aspects of life.”

Coach Scott Goodall and his staff were pretty excited when they found out about their newest commitment.

“The first coach I told was assistant coach Leonardis,” said Wright. “He was really pumped up. They plan on having me wrestle at 197-pounds.”

Wright is a little late when it comes to recruiting, as he just took his official visit to Rutgers last week.

“It went really good,” Wright mentioned. “Because it’s so late in the recruiting year I toured the campus and watched some practices. I also got to stay overnight with some of the guys on the team. I enjoyed the entire trip, and just being around the team. The campus gave me a great feel for what the school is all about.”

Along with Rutgers, Wright was also hearing from a couple other schools, but it was very late in the game for his recruitment because of when he left prep school.

“It was a weird recruiting time because I left the prep school so late in the year,” said Wright. “I was also hearing from mainly just Ohio University and Campbell. I talked to some other schools but other than those two everyone else was brief.”

Wright will have the chance to compete year one for a Scarlet Knights program that struggled mightily last season when it came to the heavyweights. Rutgers also added another heavyweight this offseason in transfer Christian Colucci from Lehigh University.

Stay tuned as we will have more on Wright soon from our wrestling analyst Lex Knapp!