It is always a challenge to keep the top high school football talent in the state of Indiana home.
That will be true once again with an in-state prospect ranked inside the national top-100 in the class of 2023.
Recruiting service 247Sports released its first class of 2023 rankings, and Merrillville, Ind. linebacker Drayk Bowen cracked the top-100 as the No. 61 player in the country.
The 2023 rankings will of course fluctuate in the coming years, but as it stands Bowen is just the fourth in-state player in the last five years to be included in the 247 top-100, joining Caden Curry (2022/undecided), Blake Fischer (2021/Notre Dame) and George Karlaftis (2019/Purdue).
The 6-foot-2 and 204 pound outside linebacker at Andrean High School appears headed towards a highly competitive national recruitment. Cincinnati offered Bowen a scholarship this summer, and the Bearcats should be the first of many Division One schools to offer.
Bowen eventually worked his way into a starting role as a freshman and finished the 2019 season with 50 tackles, including 10 tackles for loss, three sacks and two fumble recoveries.
Bowen also reports a 4.2 GPA on his Twitter page.
For its part, IU has had recent success landing high end linebacker talent from Andrean. Also formerly playing for 49er head coach Chris Skinner, IU redshirt freshman Cam Williams was the No. 11 linebacker in the nation in the class of 2019 according to Rivals.
Below are Bowen’s freshman season highlights.
Find us on Facebook: thedailyhoosier
The Daily Hoosier –“Where Indiana fans assemble when they’re not at Assembly”
Seven ways to support completely free IU coverage at no additional cost to you.