University of Houston head football coach Kevin Sumlin announced Wednesday a class of 22 players inking National Letters of Intent to play football for the Houston Cougars on National Signing Day 2011.
Rivals.com ranks the 2011 recruiting class as sixth best in Conference USA.
There aren’t any big names coming to Houston, but the variety of players that Coach Sumlin is bringing on campus should help out in the the long run as he recruited a good mix of offense and defense from both high schools as well as junior college transfers.
There are 12 defensive players, four at each position, and eight offensive players in the class with six coming from the junior college ranks — including two players, D.J. Hayden and Chevy Bennett, who are already on campus ready to take part in spring drills. 16 of the players are high school recruits including eight from the city of Houston.
According to ESPN, the top recruit is Bram Kolhausen, a 6-foot-1 quarterback that attended Lamar High School. Kolhausen was rated the No. 30 quarterback nationally by Rivals.com and recorded a 28-6 mark as a starting quarterback on his way to earning first-team All-District in 2009 and 2010 and second-team as a sophomore in 2008. He chose Houston over Utah.
Courtland Akins, a 6-foot-5 offensive lineman, was one of Kolhausen’s linemen at Lamar and has also decided to attend Houston this Fall. Earl Foster, a 6-foot defensive back, will also be playing football for the Cougars after playing with Kolhausen and Akins at Lamar.
Other players that were nationally ranked include WR C.J. McElroy, defensive linemen Joey Mbu and Keithen English, LB Desmond Pulliam and Derrick Mathews, a 6-foot linebacker from North Shore High School here in Houston.
To see highlights of the Houston Cougars 2011 recruiting class, check out the Cougars official page.