Oregon Ducks and Dan Lanning land elite defensive recruit keeping him away from Ohio State, Texas and other national rivals

The Oregon Ducks and Dan Lanning are off to another hot start with the 2026 recruiting class after yet another win on the trail this week. They locked up the number two overall recruiting class for the 2025 cycle already, and now Lanning and his staff have eight more strong talents lined up for next spring already.

There had been a bit of a lull in the recruiting wins since February, but adding Richard Wesley, one of the most highly coveted five star talents in the nation, should certainly inject some new life into the Ducks' recruiting momentum.

Richard Wesley, Five Star EDGE

Richard Wesley is a wildly special talent. So much so that he is graduating high school a year early because he's already clearly ready to compete at the FBS Division I level in 2026.

Wesley isn't the only talented recruit to reclassify and graduate a year early, but in most cases when that happens players drop quite a bit down recruiting boards because they're competing in the class rankings against players a year older than they are. That wasn't really the case with Wesley because he's already a twitched up 6'4, 250 pounds as a sophomore in high school.

As soon as Wesley reclassified all the blue bloods in on his recruiting battle at all rushed to see if they could land him, but ultimately Oregon and Dan Lanning won the day over programs like Ohio State, Texas, USC, and more.