Oregon Football Recruiting 2017: 5 must-have recruits for Ducks

Oregon and Willie Taggart need to land these five recruits leading up to National Signing Day 2017

The Oregon Ducks have long been known as a football powerhouse, though they’ve still yet to reach the pinnacle. However, they now find themselves in a period of transition after missing out on a bowl game and enduring a rather abysmal past two seasons. Answering the call will be new head coach Willie Taggart, who has hopes of injecting new life into the program.

Perhaps the best start he can get off to would be to have a strong showing in recruiting and leading up to National Signing Day 2017. Taggart recruited well as South Florida, but having the resources that Oregon does should make him even better in that regard. To get the program back on track and headed in the right direction, though, Taggart needs to round out a class ranked 25th in the composite rankings as of right now.

There are a number of ways to go about doing that. However, landing these five must-have recruits would be a fantastic way to make sure that ultimately happens.

Note: All rankings and measurements are via the 24/7 Sports Composite Rankings and listings.

• High School: Seminole
• Composite Rankings: No. 543 overall, No. 34 OLB

DeMarco Artis looks like a virtual lock to sign with the Ducks whenever he makes his decision. There are other teams in the mix, but Taggart has done a great job with this class of his at still working the state of Florida. Obviously he has roots there and it’s a football-rich state in terms of high school recruiting. Subsequently, landing a player like Artis would be big for their national reach.

Though Baylor is involved, Taggart’s roots should help them ultimately land the talented three-star linebacker. Artis isn’t a polished product by any means as he still needs to fully develop his technique. However, he does boast nice size at 6-3, 220 pounds to go with solid athletic traits. Therefore, he could develop into quite the player in Eugene.