Washington State Football Recruiting Nuggets: Recapping Four Weekend Visits

In a flurry of news from the Washington State football program this past weekend (including the news that ex-Mizzou OC David Yost is heading to Wazzu) , we told you we had seven recruits coming in for official visits. We found out throughout the weekend that WSU was actually hosting at least 9 officials, including previous SMU commit DL Zelt Minor and also newest Coug commitATH Isaac Dotson. Here’s some updates on the visitors, along with our take on their current statuses:

• CB Chidobe Awuzie: After a really good trip to WSU, Awuzie is high on the Cougs, saying “I’m leaning towards Washington State” at this point. It was hoped he would go ahead and pull the trigger, but he didn’t quite do it. He has visited San Jose State and was pretty excited about that trip, then 24 hours later the Spartan coaching staff was cleaning out and heading to Colorado, where they are now trying to procure the young CB’s services. Awuzie is planning on making his college decision sometime next week, after his CU visit takes place this weekend. He says SJSU is still in the game for him.

Personally, I find Awuzie a very intriguing prospect and am as excited as I can be to hopefully get him in a Cougar uniform. I would love to see him making plays in the defensive backfield and think he could easily be playing next year. In fact, few prospects pique my interest as much as this kid does from Oak Grove, CA.

He’s really excited about what he saw here and I think with a year under his belt, Leach and his staff have a leg up on CU at this point in the “up and coming” stages of the program. I do in fact think the Buffs are two years behind Wazzu in competitive ability. And I don’t really believe the Spartans will end up in the race when everything is considered next week, based on the ability to play in the Pac-12. However if it’s all about guaranteed PT, they can probably promise he’ll start day 1 at CU, so that could become a factor. As with the others, we’ll go more into his skill sets if and when he commits. 

• OL Dwayne Johnson: The big guy has been a very interesting late development in the Wazzu recruiting process. He was previously committed to Purdue, but some coaching changes caused concern for Johnson and he is now looking at Arkansas, WSU and Nebraska. He said over the weekend that the trip “definitely raised my interest” in the program and he plans on taking his Nebraska visit over the weekend.

Johnson is a curious case right now, as he says he’s ready to commit to a school this week (hasn’t indicated which way though) but is still looking forward to comparing campuses, leading to his inevitable trip to Lincoln this week, regardless. He would add a tremendous 6’6″ 275 lbs to the class and would be an incredible grab this late in the process to fill out the OL class of 2013 because of his versatility and athleticism at his size. However he is far from a sure thing at this point and I am interested in his decision as much as anyone. 

• WR Hunter Jarmon: A rising commodity in the recruiting world and has been gaining steady interest in CML’s offensive philosophy and passing tendencies. Jarmon is a sure handed receiver and could become the 3rd WR in this class. His visit happened to be viewed as the best of the bunch, describing it as a “wow” visit that opened his eyes to a completely different side of WSU. He loved everything from bonding with the players/coaches, to the campus life, to the school colors. Before making his decision, he still has a visit to take at Texas Tech this weekend, but he said “I can definitely see myself wearing these colors.”

Jarmon would be the grab of the class at WR, as he has tremendous versatility and can play either inside or outside. He has put Washington State in the lead and said the time on campus will be tough to match, so we can only hope that by the middle of next week he’ll have made a choice to join the class. He was really interested in the uniform combos, which as we know is trending like twitter among young athletes looking into colleges. Any more most teams have 3-4 helmets and a thousand jersey combos just to keep interesting. Thing is, colors are important to me too. Thankfully, my favorite football teams (WSU and Seattle) have the best colors in their respective leagues. Phew!

• OL Cody O’Connell: There’s not a whole lot to report about Cody, other than that the visit cemented any doubts he may have had about his choice. He did say it was Washington State all the way for him and he’s ready to jump in.

Cody brings mass that we just don’t possess currently. He brings SEC type mass to our line at 6’8″ 350 lbs and it’s great to see CML going after the size. If you’ll remember, he really had some hogs at Tech and made it work quite nicely. If O’Connell can improve his technique and show quicker feet than you would expect for a guy that big, he could play very early in his career, though I don’t expect it to be this season. 

So there you have it. We’ll report more as we find out where the other kids are leaning and how their trips went. Hoping to get all four of these guys in the right jersey, which is ours, by the end of next week. Sounds promising on 3 of them. We’ll keep you updated on Johnson’s commit status as well. While he would be some pretty sweet icing on the class at this point, I personally get the feeling he wants to go bigger and/or stay in the B1G. Nebraska fits that bill. We have at least 7 more visiting this upcoming weekend so we’ll get you caught up on that later in the week.

Go Cougs!