Ricky Rahne had less than two months to put together his first recruiting class at Old Dominion, and the first-year coach went heavy on speed and local players.

The former Penn State offensive coordinator and a long-time assistant coach under Nittany Lions coach James Franklin, Rahne also finished up his first class with the Monarchs with a bang as he signed one-time Maryland commit Santana Saunders and Chesapeake (Va.) Indian River receiver and former North Carolina commit LaMareon James.

Also inking with the Monarchs was former Temple commit Chazz Wallace, a defensive tackle from Gaithersburg (Md.) Avalon, as the Monarchs signed 12 players Wednesday to bring their class total to 18.

“When you look at our league (Conference USA), most of the league was signing their players on the second signing day,” Rahne said. “It was something we did a study on. It was, ‘Ok, we have to sign the right guys during the first one (in December),' and then we have to know we are going to stay on some guys and get some big-time players there on the second one.”

At the skill positions, Old Dominion got speed in James, Irmo (S.C.) Dutch Fok athlete Tyrik McDaniel, Mineral (Va.) Louisa County receiver Noah Robinson, Dorchester (S.C.) Woodland cornerback K'Ron Ferrell and athlete Devin Lester of Bluefield (Va.) Graham.

And Rahne showed his recruiting reach in getting a late commitment from rising safety Levi Wentz of Gibsonia (Pa.) Pine-Richland, which is a school he became familiar with while at Penn State. Wentz has one year of football experience and he displays very good athleticism.

“I wanted speed. We needed it,” Rahne said. “We evaluated our team on tape and we had some length, and we had some things like that, but we needed more speed desperately and so we had to get that. We were trying to find any kind of verified speed we could find and feel we were getting the right guys.”

Ten of the 18 players to sign are within four hours of campus, and six are from Virginia.

“I think it’s just building the relationships with guys,” Rahne said. “Each one of our 10 coaches has a part of Virginia and I think that is important because they’re going to own that area. I think it’s important for us to do very well in Virginia.

“We have to do awesome in the DMV (District of Columbia, Maryland, Virginia). We have coaches in Maryland, coaches in New Jersey, we have coaches in Pennsylvania and we have coaches in North Carolina.”

Rahne built his coaching staff with a mix of young but experienced coaches with ties to different areas within Old Dominion’s recruiting footprint as well as coaches who worked with him at prior stops.

He spent six years at Penn State, where he was the offensive coordinator the last two seasons. He was with Franklin at Vanderbilt for three years prior to that, and he also had coaching stops at Kansas State and Holy Cross.

Old Dominion offensive coordinator Kirk Campbell was at Penn State as an offensive analyst under Rahne and served as the Nittany Lions' quarterbacks coach for its Cotton Bowl win against Memphis.

Special teams coordinator and outside linebackers coach Kevin Smith, receivers coach Mark Dupuis and offensive line coach Kevin Reihner were graduate assistants at Penn State.

“We have a young staff, and I am not sure it is not the youngest staff in America,” Rahne said. “But they do have a bunch of experience, especially in recruiting. Guys know how to hit the road in recruiting.”