2027 New York OL James Cocozzo commits to Rutgers Football
In the midst of spring practices, Rutgers Football has continued its work on the high school recruiting trail and has hosted a long list of recruits so far this spring.
One of the most recent visitors was 2027 offensive lineman James Cocozzo, who has now been to Piscataway several times over the past few months, but this recent visit on Saturday was the one that sealed the deal and led to his commitment to the Scarlet Knights.
The 6-foot-4, 292-pounds interior offensive lineman hails from Stillwater High School, which is located in upstate New York and a little over a three hour drive to Rutgers.
“I love the environment that the coaches and players make there, and the standards that they are held to,” Cocozzo told The Knight Report.
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As for Cocozzo as a prospect, we can only go based off his 2024 sophomore year film as he missed all of last season due to an ACL injury, but has recovered quite well and done a ton of rehab since then. During that 2024 season, he did not allow a single sack or quarterback hurry and earned Times Union First-Team honors as an offensive tackle.
Prior to that, he also had quite the year as a high school freshman in 2023, where he played linebacker and posted a school-record 137 total tackles and earned first-team Times Union small-school all-star honors.
Cocozzo also has some good football genes in his family, as his father Joe Cocozzo played at University of Michigan and earned First Time All-Big Ten and Second Team All-American in 1992 before being drafted in the third round of the 1993 NFL Draft by the San Diego Chargers. He would go on to play several years in the NFL, appearing in 77 games and 48 starts, including Super Bowl XXIX where the Chargers would end up losing to the San Francisco 49ers.
Going back to the younger Cocozzo, in the end he chose Rutgers over eight other offers from the likes of programs such as Maryland, Penn State, Syracuse, UConn, Virginia Tech and a few others.
Cocozzo now becomes the first high school offensive line commit in the 2027 class for new position coach Jim Turner.
“I like the way that Coach Turner ran his O-line like a hard-nosed old school coach,” Cocozzo added.
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