The Washington State Cougars have officially picked up their second verbal commitment of the 2015 class, like the first, he is a 4-star athlete and will be playing defense for Mike Leach.
Despite a 2,000 yard sophomore and 1,500 yard junior season at running back, Austin Joyner of Marysville-Pilchuck high school is heading to WSU to play on the defensive side of the football. He’s passionate about being a corner and feels like he projects better there. Also, he has a strong connection to Mike Breske, who’s been onto Joyner since the coach arrived in Pullman three years ago.
Joyner sports a nice placement as an ESPN-300 member, currently 253 to be exact. He is ranked as the top prospect in the state by multiple recruiting services as well. However it will be interesting to see if and how those statistics change now that it is known he will be playing defense, because his positional ranking stems from his work as an RB. He played cornerback for what sounded like the first time in 2013 and says he “really enjoyed it, but my team needed me on offense.”
Regardless this is a huge pickup of a nice athlete for the Cougs. The fact that he projects as a defensive athlete the coaches have wanted since they arrived says something about his skill-set and the fact that they were able to land the verbal is a huge deal to the success of the rest of the class. Now it’s all about holding onto him for the next 10 months (this is an early signing period would be ideal for WSU, hopefully one is coming down the NCAA pipe soon).
Joyner has received offers from WSU, Boise State (the other of his top-two going into the week), Arkansas, Colorado, Oregon State and Washington. He is also receiving sorted interest from the likes of Michigan, Oregon, USC and many others.
Here’s Joyner’s HUDL highlights.