The Georgetown football team added 23 recruits to its incoming class on National Signing Day last Wednesday, Feb. 7. The 23 new signees bring the total number of incoming football recruits to 28, after the Hoyas landed 5 recruits in the early signing period in December.

In total, the team added 15 players on defense, 11 on offense and two on special teams. Six players hail from the Washington D.C.-Maryland-Virginia metropolitan area. The coaching staff focused on recruiting linemen on both sides of the ball, landing five on both offense and defense.

Georgetown Head Coach Rob Sgarlata highlighted the athleticism of the recruits as well as their geographic diversity in an interview with GUHoyas.

“I am extremely grateful to our staff for their tireless efforts to bring a very talented class to the Hilltop. The class totals 28 extremely accomplished student-athletes from 16 different states and consists of 23 team captains and 25 multi-sport athletes,” Sgarlata said.

The large recruiting class reflects how many holes in talent the Hoyas needed to fill, as the team has 27 seniors graduating this spring. This is the second year in a row Georgetown has recruited over 25 players, with 27 recruits signing with the team last year.

This year, the Hoyas placed a heavy focus on the line of scrimmage, signing five offensive linemen and six defensive linemen. In an interview with play-by-play announcer Jeremy Huber, Recruiting Coordinator and Offensive Line Coach Alex Kolt said the strategy reflected the needs of the team and that he was surprised with the depth of talent at those positions.

“We definitely had significant needs to fill with a bigger senior class going out and looked to put a big emphasis on both lines of scrimmage,” Kolt said. “I was really pleasantly surprised with the pool of offensive and defensive line — two of the hardest positions to find and two of the most important positions in football.”

The Hoyas also signed five linebackers, three wide receivers, three defensive backs, one tight end, one running back, one quarterback, one long snapper and one punter. According to Sgarlata, the five new linebackers will add depth to a linebacker corps losing two of its top players.

“We have some really talented kids in our second level at linebacker, but we really did lack depth last year. We graduate some really good players with Dan Yankovich and Matt Apuzzi graduating for us, so we wanted to add some depth there,” Sgarlata said in an interview with Huber.

Recruiting well in the DMV region has been a long-term recruiting goal for Sgarlata and his staff. Last year’s class had seven recruits from the region, and this year’s team had 14 players from the region in total. Next season’s team will have 13 in the freshman and sophomore classes alone. Kolt, who is from Arlington, Va., said he was excited about how Georgetown has recruited in the area the past few years.

“I was really pleased with the way that we have [recruited in the DMV]. Really in the past two years, we’ve put a huge emphasis on it,” Kolt said. “There’s a ton of talent here, so we really want to have success here in our backyard.”

Sgarlata said the incoming class, like the class before them, will have an opportunity to make an impact on the Hilltop immediately.

“Last year’s class — the Class of 2021 — is 27 kids. Eleven of them started a game. Eighteen of them appeared in a game. We recruit every kid the same. They’re allowed the same opportunities as everybody else to come here and compete and try to win a spot. With graduating a big class — 27 kids — there’ll be opportunities for them to come in and impact things in August,” Sgarlata said to Huber.

Next season, Georgetown will look to improve upon this season’s 1-10 overall record and 0-6 conference record that placed the team at the bottom of the Patriot League. The fall schedule has yet to be announced.