UW Class of 2014 Recruiting Thread

[WizardHawk]

Class finished strong and far surpassed my expectations after Petersen came in given how little time he had. Adding the guy who's quote I now have in my sig was the feather in the cap, but getting the QB who was a solid vandy commit before their changes and landing mcgary might have been more impressive as Baker might have just wanted to stay home and found the new coaching staff acceptable for doing so.

 

[RegentDenali]

LOL at your sig. I'm going to use that. Not only sweet music, but the truth for anyone.

 

[RegentDenali]

McGary was a very important get. He's got solid grades and got OKG written all over him, but I was worried about him because his choice in schools were ones that had agriculture tracks (OSU, WSU, and Wisky) so he did make some tough choices by opting to come here, but says he also found he really clicked with those he met in the animal conservation dept at UW and plans to persue that as a major. Good for him and good for UW.

I love it that we addressed the 3 most crit needs for the class. DB, Oline, and Dline. They mention Sark had put a lot of attention on the skill position in the past two classes and 5 seniors will be graduating off the lines after next season. Good we were able to do a lot work on that with this class.

 

[mcnabb7542]

McGary was a very important get. He's got solid grades and got OKG written all over him, but I was worried about him because his choice in schools were ones that had agriculture tracks (OSU, WSU, and Wisky) so he did make some tough choices by opting to come here, but says he also found he really clicked with those he met in the animal conservation dept at UW and plans to persue that as a major. Good for him and good for UW.

I love it that we addressed the 3 most crit needs for the class. DB, Oline, and Dline. They mention Sark had put a lot of attention on the skill position in the past two classes and 5 seniors will be graduating off the lines after next season. Good we were able to do a lot work on that with this class.

Now comes the task of living up to the hype. Baker is the one I'm worried about, since the Hasty debockle at UW I'm concern with the Bellevue connection...

 

[RegentDenali]

The consensus No. 1 prospect in Washington, Baker, is a dynamic safety, running back and kick returner. Bellevue coach Butch Goncharoff has said he regards Baker and current UCLA linebacker/running back Myles Jack as perhaps the best players at his powerhouse program over the last decade.

Baker had offers from USC, UCLA, Notre Dame, Stanford, California, Oregon, Oregon State, Arizona, Arizona State … and just about every other university that issues shoulder pads. He was committed to Oregon – until Sarkisian bolted for USC in December and Petersen left Boise State to become Washington’s coach four days after that. Petersen immediately offered him the chance to play primarily on defense, in a Huskies secondary that has lost four starters to graduation since December’s Fight Hunger Bowl.

Petersen said they have discussed offensive packages for Baker and that he will get chances at kick returning, too, as a freshman. But the coach told Baker “We don’t want to make you a jack of all trades and master of none.”

“We need him on defense in the worst way,” Petersen said, “right away.”

Petersen identified Baker is one of a handful of top recruits signed Wednesday that he “absolutely” would not have been able to lure to Boise State. The coach has come to see that the quality of education and facilities at UW – with its $280 million renovation of Husky Stadium and construction of the new football operations center not even six months old – mean “this place sells itself.”

“All the things that he’s all about – every person that’s been around him, his high school coaches, everybody that’s been around Budda says the same thing: ‘What a wonderful person he is,’” Petersen said. “I can see tape. That’s pretty easy. I can see what type of player he is. And so the combination of that – and then coupled with our need in the secondary, I was like, ‘This is the guy. This is the guy we’ve got to start with.’

“And what he means to this community is just awesome.”

Baker explained to the Seattle Times in a December story that he prefers to hang out at home with his mother Michelle, his stepfather and younger sister instead of going to teen parties. Baker told the newspaper he reveres his mother, a cancer survivor who is currently fighting through Crohn’s disease, and sees her as “my mom and my dad.” She’s where Baker gets his perseverance.


Great article that really goes into detail of what they did to design this class and touch on the details of the big gets of the class and all the rest.

Unleashed: Petersen’s 1st UW Signing Day: So Smooth - University of Washington Official Athletics Site - GOHUSKIES.COM

 

[WizardHawk]

Yeah, this isn't related to the 2014 class, but starting a 2015 thread seems a bit premature at this point.

The Huskies hosted their Junior Day on Saturday and coach Chris Petersen offered a scholarship to Shadle Park (Spokane) quarterback Brett Rypien, the nephew of former Washington State quarterback Mark Rypien, the MVP of Super Bowl XXVI for the Washington Redskins.

Brett Rypien has put up some mighty impressive numbers in Shadle Park’s spread offense. He also has offers from Boise State, Colorado State, Idaho, Mississippi State, Oregon State and Washington State, and he told Dawgman.com that he wants to wrap up his recruiting by May.

As Petersen said on Signing Day last week, his preference is to have a quarterback in every class. The idea of going into this season with three quarterbacks was “scary,” he said, which is why signing K.J. Carta-Samuels was a priority.

Among those also in attendance Saturday were Bellevue linebacker Mustafa Branch, Skyline linebacker Cameron Saffle and Beaverton (Ore.) defensive lineman Jared Hilbers.