The Grand Valley State football program reloaded in a big way with its 2015 recruiting class.

GVSU head coach Matt Mitchell announced Wednesday the signing of student athletes who will join the team next fall. The 36-member list includes a pair of quarterbacks, three running backs, five wide receivers, six offensive linemen, eight defensive linemen, three linebackers, eight defensive backs and a punter.

This year’s class features more out-of-state talent than usual.

“That’s more than we typically have and that’s us trying to broaden our footprint a little bit more,” Mitchell said.

Mitchell also said the coaches pointed their out-of-state attention to highly competitive metropolitan areas in the Midwest. GVSU landed seven players from Ohio, six from Indiana and five from Illinois. More specifically, four recruits were from Indianapolis, three from Cincinnati, two from Cleveland and one from Chicago.

Two of those recruits were quarterbacks, and both are expected to push GVSU’s current group led by Bart Williams and Ollie Ajami.

Cole Kotopka is a 6-foot-5, 235-pound signal caller who garnered All-Conference and All-Area plaudits both as a junior and a senior at Plainfield East in Plainfield, Ill. Matt Crable, a 6-foot-4 All-Greater Cincinnati League and All-Southwest Ohio honoree, played for nationally ranked Cincinnati Moeller.

“They’ve played some of the highest levels of football in the Midwest — and they also achieved, took their teams to the playoffs,” Mitchell said. “Both those guys were at the top of our list. We worked really, really hard and got them verbally committed and had to hang on to them.”

The Lakers also seemed to bolster their future backfield with a trio of tailbacks: Caleb Richard (Sanford, Mich.), Christian Lumpkin (Cincinnati, Ohio) and Bryce Young (Ann Arbor, Mich.).

Young, who signed his letter of intent Wednesday, was the Ann Arbor News Football Player of the Year. The 5-foot-7 burner toted the rock 136 times for 1,198 yards and 19 total touchdowns as a senior, averaging 133.1 yards per game.

“All three are versatile players,” Mitchell said. “They’ve got great ball skills and can do a lot of different things. There are a couple of those guys that I think are home run hitters. Fast. Like (Kirk) Spencer-ish.”

Defensively, GVSU made moves to load up in the secondary.

The team inked eight defensive backs in addition to a pair of transfers — Jacob Studdard and Kevin Wilson.

“Corners were a priority,” Mitchell said. “I think we found some corners that could not only play corner, but could also potentially play some other positions like a nickel or beef up and potentially be a safety.

“We were trying to find hybrid-type players in the secondary because we really didn’t have that strong of a secondary class last year either.”

Last year, the Lakers finished 6-5 with a 6-4 mark in GLIAC play. GVSU lost more than 20 seniors last year.

Mitchell said other departures include wide receiver Kameel Jackson and TyVel Jemison.

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