After a somewhat subdued day around Houston, it appears that all the Letters of Intent have been sent out and National Signing Day was completed with little drama. As Sam Khan, Jr. wrote about on his blog, there were only a couple changes of heart late in the process. The most notable may have been Cy-Creek running back Jermichael Selders, who switched from West Virginia to Baylor late Monday night.
I'm sure it had nothing to do with Pearland running back Dustin Garrison choosing West Virginia earlier this winter, but it did add some levels of intrigue. The other two late switches were Dulles DB Zoey Williams switching from UTEP to New Mexico and Chavez WR Jafus Gaines switching from the Cougars to join newly hired coach Dennis Franchione at Texas State.
The craziest recruiting story of the day? That would be the saga of Floyd Raven. The defensive back from Reserve, Louisiana appeared to send his LOI to Ole Miss...that is, until it came out that his mom forged his signature on the LOI to send it there. Appears Mom wanted to hang out with Eli Manning a little more than Floyd did. Instead, Raven decided to join Texas A&M next fall in a weird, wild story.
National Signing Day is cool for a lot of reasons. The students are excited about going to the next level. Schools are excited about their potential. ESPN is excited about the ratings. But, I really subscribe more to Mike Sherman's view of things here:
"“No disrespect to the recruiting services, but I really don’t pay attention. I never know when I sign a kid if he’s a five star, four star or three star. I just know the grade we gave him.”
Recruiting should be about fitting guys into your program, not about what "star" the kid was given. Did Mack Brown, Jim Tressel and the rest sign great players? Yeah, they probably did. But, they did it based on their own evaluations, not just what a recruiting service said. After the jump, I'll talk a little more about some of the Houston-area signings.
One of the few guys I was able to see in person in the past two seasons was Angleton quarterback/defensive back Quandre Diggs. The versatile athlete is the brother of San Diego cornerback Quentin Jammer, so it's no surprise he joined the Texas Longhorns Wednesday. He'll also play defensive back exclusively with Texas, following in his brother's footsteps. Diggs is a tough kid, and explosively fast. He was one of the fastest guys I've seen in Class 4A the past few years.
Another interesting signee is Pearland defensive lineman Sam Ukwuachu. He was tabbed by Dave Campbell's Texas Football as a possible defensive player of the year heading into this season and he did not disappoint. Ukwuachu led his team to the state title, earning himself a scholarship at perennial BCS-buster Boise State.
Surprisingly, Nebraska and fiery head coach Bo Pelini had a good haul in and around Houston, as the Huskers nabbed highly-regarded defensive back Charles Jackson of Klein Collins. Nebraska also signed Givens Mordi Price out of Alief Taylor and Klein Collins linebacker David Santos. Oklahoma cleaned up in Houston recruiting as well, getting commitments from Brookshire Royal running back Brandon Williams and a pair of Klein Oak standouts in tight end Max Stevenson and defensive end Nathan Hughes.
Texas Tech had one of its strongest classes in recent memory, thanks to new head coach Tommy Tuberville. The former Auburn head coach went on a barnstorming tour of the state Wednesday with press conferences in Houston and Dallas to tout his signing class. I've talked about how impressive Pflugerville Hendrickson running back Kenny Williams was this past season, but as a refresher, the 5-foot-10 senior had rushed for over 3,000 yards in his previous two seasons, but played a lot of fullback in 2010. Why? Because he was a dominant blocker. Another guy who could do great things for Tuberville is Brenham wideout Derek Edwards. His size (6-1) won't play as well in college, but Edwards is a smooth route runner and should continue Tech's tradition of having great receivers.