WSU Football Recruiting: Quality Cali CB Darrien Molton Commits to Mike Leach

Mike Leach is starting to put together one of those classes, now he has snagged a commitment from a quality corner from California, Darrien Molton.

Molton is in fact considered one of the top cover-corners in the state and had other offers from Cal, Colorado, Duke and Nevada on the table. He’s a little on the smaller side of things at 5’10”, 165 lbs, but he reminds me so much of former Cougar great Jason David on tape and I do not say that lightly.

If you ever saw David play, in spite of his small stature, he was the epitome of explosiveness when he arrived at the football. The most common coaching term for the tackling side of things would be arriving at the ball with bad intentions. That’s something that Molton does extremely well, but he can also cover the daylight off of people, is very instinctive and has great awareness of his surroundings, allowing him to attack the football effortlessly.

On tape when Molton moves during the pre-snap he’s still a bit stiff in the hips and isn’t as smooth as you want immediately into the play, which could cost him precious beats when going up against Pac-12 caliber receivers, but his makeup speed and change of direction during the play are excellent. This is especially evident when the receiver is attempting to “eat up cushion”, or basically close the gap between the two players in his route so that he can create separation at the top of the route.

At any rate Molton has the tools to become a very solid and even special cover-man for the Cougs eventually. I’m obviously really excited to see what he develops into if he ends up signing with Washington State next February. He’s the seventh known commitment for a rockin’ 2015 class so far.