Miami lands second 5-star this week with commitment from IMG edge rusher Jayden Wayne

For the second time this week, the Miami Hurricanes won a major five-star recruiting battle Saturday.

Jayden Wayne, a five-star edge rusher at Bradenton IMG Academy, orally committed to Miami during a live broadcast on CBS Sports HQ. It’s the second time this week a five-star lineman from IMG Academy committed to the Hurricanes — Francis Mauigoa committed Monday — and it continues a torrential run of commitments for Mario Cristobal and Co.

Wayne is the sixth blue-chip recruit to commit to Miami’s Class of 2023 in the last two weeks. In the process, the Hurricanes have jumped from No. 44 to No. 7 in 247Sports’ team rankings.

The 6-foot-5, 245-pound athlete is the No. 30 player and No. 5 edge rusher in the 247 composite rankings for the Class of 2023, and he was the No. 1 recruit in Washington before he announced his decision to transfer to IMG last month.

Although Wayne will play his senior year in Florida, this is another national victory for the Hurricanes, just like Mauigoa’s commitment was. Wayne is from Washington and played the last three seasons at Lincoln in Tacoma before he decided to join the Ascenders. The Georgia Bulldogs, Alabama Crimson Tide, LSU Tigers, Michigan State Spartans and Oregon Ducks rounded out Wayne’s top six, and Miami beat them all, at least in part, because of Cristobal’s ties to the West Coast.

When he was the coach at Oregon, Cristobal had the Ducks in great position to land both Wayne and Mauigoa, who is from American Samoa, before he left to return to his alma mater late last year. Now he has the Hurricanes in position to sign multiple out-of-state five-star players for the first time since the 2005 recruiting cycle.

Miami has only signed multiple five-star prospects once in the last 10 years.

Wayne has been a major recruiting target for the Hurricanes for about a year and managed to get him on campus a handful of times this year, hosting him for an unofficial visit in January and an official visit in June. Cristobal was also the first coach to offer Wayne a scholarship back when he was at Oregon.

At Miami, Wayne will slot in as a defensive end, although he also has the size to develop into an interior presence, too. As a junior, the defensive end logged 44 tackles with 16 tackles for loss, nine sacks and a forced fumble in just eight games, and also caught 18 passes for 259 yards and five touchdowns a a wide receiver.

Wayne also strengthens the Hurricanes’ foothold at IMG as the third Ascender to commit to Miami in the last eight days, joining Mauigoa, a five-star tackle, and elite tight end Riley Williams. He and Mauigoa are now the top two players in the Hurricanes’ 2023 recruiting class and the six new additions in the last two weeks — Wayne, Mauigoa, Williams, elite quarterback Jaden Rashada, Edison wide receiver Nathaniel Joseph and Melbourne Eau Gallie athlete Robert Stafford — are now the six highest ranked players in the class.

Miami, however, did not go 2 for 2 on five-star decisions this weekend. Jalen Brown, a five-star wide receiver at Gulliver Prep, orally committed to LSU on Friday, spurning his hometown Hurricanes for the Southeastern Conference.