Seton Hall is probably 35 minutes from Woodbridge, with traffic and there's starting minutes clearly available there. To say both PSU and SHU passed on a Top 75 ranked portal kid (out of potentially 2000+ kids) is tough to believe.
It's pretty clear that someone outside of this message board community, gave an independent ranking of all the portal entries. Someone or a group of evaluation people believe Derkack has enough overall talent to be ranked in that range. In an old RU mindset, RU fans would be giddy to land not just 1, but 2 Top 100 portal kids (Acuff and Derkack).
This whole exercise with the fanbase isn't really about actually getting results, it is about what players are mentioned the most or are most familiar to the RU fanbase. If you have someone post enough times about Matt Allocco, fans will believe he is a better choice, because his name circulated the most times.
Because the staff is keeping recruiting information under wraps and we aren't getting bad information from other sources in recent weeks, things are moving along in the right fashion. We should not be overhyping any portal entry, all that does is drive up the perceived value....not because that player isn't good, it comes down to this for some fans.....did the team you are rooting for, get the players they think are best or most popular in the fans viewpoint??
Some fans aren't concerned with actually winning.... it's more about the winning the perception battle that "we beat out this other school in recruiting OR can, should or want to be able to offer as much NIL as possible "......even though any successful business model is designed to limit expenses at all costs, while continuing to be thrive.
RU is doing more than fine and landing Derkack is a great pickup....and who knows how good or potentially good the younger Derkack brother may turn into. It certainly didn't hurt that RU took a flyer on Ron Harper Jr and beat out Seton Hall for him a few years ago, before he had a bunch of other high major offers......landing RHJ, triggered a run (that included Montez Mathis etc)......which got things started and got parlayed into landing 4* Cliff and then rolled into Dylan Harper, Ace Bailey and the 2024 class.
There are kids worth the pickup and Derkack, even without his younger brother as a Top 60 kid in 2026, is one of those pickups. There's literally no downside to landing a Top 75 portal kid.