WSU Football Recruiting: Griffin, Tucker Highlight Big Weekend For Defensive Visits

As the Washington State University semester wrapped up there was a big weekend for the Cougars football team and more specifically on the defensive side of the ball. The Cougars had a total of 12 recruits on their official visits this weekend, 7 of which were on the defensive side.

Marcus Griffin, the one time Cougar commit out of Bellevue High School in Bellevue, Washington, was one of the bigger names in the group of defensive players that has yet to commit anywhere. The other big name is Olajuwon Tucker from Junipero Serra High School in Gardena, California.

Griffin, the 28th ranked defensive tackle in the nation, had been committed to the Cougars since April 27th and de-committed on November 10th.The three-star recruit recently had has his in-home visit from Mike Leach, defensive coordinator Mike Breske, and defensive line coach Joe Salave’a, later that week Griffin played in the Washington State High School Championship game where they beat Eastside Catholic 52-20.

Tucker, the 19th ranked outside linebacker in the nation and ranked 4-stars, is a soft verbal commit to USC. USC has recently hired ex-Washington coach, Steve Sarkisian, and Tucker (as of December 15th) had not talked with Sarkisian according to CougFan.com. This is a semi-good thing for Cougar fans as Tucker also said that he had Washington State as a fall-back plan for next year. Olajuwan’s older brother, Tim, played for Sarkisian at Washington but was dismissed from the team this summer for violation of team rules.

Both Griffin and Tucker would be big additions to this Washington State team that is on the rise. Both players know where the Cougars are headed and have some interest in joining the team that is aiming towards the PAC-12 Championship.

The Cougars were able to land a commitment this weekend from Defensive end Kingston Fernandez from Kapolei High School in Kapolei, Hawaii. Fernandez was also in Pullman this weekend for his visit. The 6-3, 235-pound defensive end is unranked and has 2 stars but was able to rack up 17 sacks and 68 tackles in the 2013 season. Fernandez is the 19th known commit for the Cougars for the class of 2014. With the size and speed that he has, Fernandez is the type of player to come in and make an impact right away for the Cougars.

The Cougars had 2 recruits on their official visits this weekend that had already committed to Washington State; OLB Frank Luvu and DE Nick Begg. As for the recruits that had yet to commit that list included DT Kalani Vakameilalo and DE Sione Takitaki along with Griffin and Tucker.