Cole Madison of Kennedy Catholic HS in Seattle makes it 5 straight days that WSU has received a commitment, as he gives his verbal. Like Ivan McLennan’s verbal commit, this could be premature, as Cole plans on visiting a couple other schools still (including UW) and has left it open-ended as to whether he is fully committed or not at this point. But for the Cougs, it’s a nice sign regardless.
I’m not really sure where Cole fits in right now. At 6’6, 260, this kid is expecting to grow a couple inches still and has the frame to really put some more beef on. That could easily put him at 6-8 or 6-9 and anywhere from 280 to 295. But here’s the “catch”, he’s a tight end! At least right now he is, with nice hands and a great propensity to cave down the end of the line with his strength. I think current Cougar tight end Andrei Lintz has given Leach a little bit of “big man can catch” fever.
Or is Madison a defensive end? Madison is quick as a cat laterally (figuratively speaking), uses his hands well against blockers and he really gets to the play quickly. He could do really well on the end of the 3-4 and with his TE skills he could easily make a transition to the “Buck” hybrid position that ex-defensive end Travis Long now occupies. I see Madison here quite frankly, as I’m sure Leach does as well considering the fact that Cole will get bigger. But I think that he could be the perfect offensive redzone player as well, coming in on some specific packages to give the Qb’s a generous target or use his well rounded blocking to help open a hole up in the run game.
Until otherwise notified, I’m going to list Cole Madison as an athlete. He might not grade out all that well in our commitments just yet because nobody knows what they are supposed to think about him, but I believe what he can do adds a value that can’t really be graded. It’s tough to say exactly what Leach is looking for here, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he uses the multiple skill sets that Madison possesses. Here’s some Junior season video of the big athletic kid from Seattle:
5 days in a row and counting… GO COUGS!