Charger football team announces 2021 National Signing Day Class

The Hillsdale College football program is pleased to announce the addition of several incoming freshmen as part of its National Signing Day Class of 2021 on Wednesday afternoon.

The Chargers signed 27 players on Wednesday, Feb. 3, with several more signings expected to help fill out the roster for Team 129 in the days and weeks to come.

As is common at Hillsdale, several players in the class are entering with prior family connections to Hillsdale College. John VanOpstall's older brother, Matt, played for the Chargers as an offensive lineman from 2011 to 2015 and started 17 games at right tackle for Hillsdale, while Mitchell Nagy's father, Shayne, played at Hillsdale from 1992 to 1995 as an offensive and defensive lineman, and Will Whims' older sister, Mary, is currently a senior at Hillsdale College. Jacob Maloney is the younger brother of current Hillsdale College wide receiver Konnor Maloney.

The Chargers are also adding several players who won at the highest levels of high school football, including Garrett Keith, Matt Soderdahl, and Brayden Sturm from a Center Grove squad that recently captured the IHSAA state title in Indiana's highest division, 6A, and Will Heffner, who played on a Cincinnati La Salle team that won the OHSAA Division II state title in 2019.

As impressive as this recruiting class is on the field, it's also more than capable of maintaining Hillsdale's high standards in the classroom. This class has an average high school grade point average of 3.67.

It was a challenging year for recruiting as the Covid-19 pandemic disrupted both college programs and high school schedules, but Hillsdale head coach Keith Otterbein, entering his 19th season with the Chargers, is confident that Hillsdale is bringing in a quality group in the Class of 2025.

"We're very pleased with the group of men we were able to assemble in this class, and we feel like this would be a strong class in any year and under any circumstances," Otterbein said. "This is a group that has the talent on the field to make our program better, but even more importantly the character to represent Hillsdale College well off the field, and the intelligence and work ethic to exceed the high standards our program sets in the classroom as well."

This freshman class will join a Charger team that's coming off a short break after playing an unprecedented eight-game season in the spring, beginning with a home contest against former GLIAC rival Saginaw Valley State on March 6 at 2 p.m. Hillsdale will play six G-MAC games in the spring and look to compete for their second G-MAC title in three years after finishing fourth in the league at 6-5 in the fall of 2019.

2021 Charger Football Recruiting Class