Nice to see that coach Wulff and company have dipped their toes back into the JC waters, as WSU announced yesterday the signing of a pair of JUCO offensive linemen. Rico Forbes and Taylor Meighen are now officially in the mix, and will get their chances this spring to help sort out the offensive line. Per the official site:
Forbes, a native of the Bahamas who prepped at St. Pius High School in Houston, Texas, has spent the past two seasons at Navarro College in Corsicana, Texas. Forbes, at 6-4, 260-pounds, originally signed an NLI with Baylor in Feb., 2009, before attending Navarro. In 2010 he helped Navarro to an 11-1 record and the National Junior College Athletic Association national championship, avenging its only loss of the year by beating Butler Community College in the title game, 13-12.
Meighen, a 6-3, 285-pound center from Beaumont, Texas, has played the last two seasons at Kilgore College in Kilgore, Texas. This past season Meighen earned 2010 All-Southwest Junior College Football Conference First Team honors at center.
Seems to be very little doubt that the two will at least add depth up front, but also compete for the starting center job now that Zach Williams will be moving on. I know, it’s hard to peg a JC player(s) in December as possible starting players, and we have to see how spring ball plays out of course before we can really get a feel for what’s to come. You never want to get too jacked about JC’s, because even while they might look like a sure thing, you just never know. But things seemed to go OK this year with JC’ers David Gonzales and Wade Jacobson. So why not go back to the well and try, try again? It’s nice to see the team reach out and grab some JC players who can add to the depth and competition level up front, an area where they will definitely need reinforcements next year.
But that’s not all. Cougfan is speculating that there could be another signee on the way, in JC linebacker Ian Knight. But WSU has not yet announced his signing, although ESPN.com has him reported as signed, however. So we’ll see.
In other recruiting news, there was a new ESPN story on Bishop Sankey’s recruitment. Sankey is coming off a record-setting season at G-Prep, and for his career finished just 100 yards short of Jonathan Stewart’s all-time record. Sankey lit it up in 2010, with over 2500 yards and 40 TD’s (wow!). Anyway, if you follow this thing called recruiting, you know that Sankey has been labeled as a “soft verbal”, I guess? The ESPN story is of the Insider variety, so I can’t share direct quotes with you. But let’s just say he has a lot of raving-type quotes about his visits to Maryland and Minnesota. And oh yeah, the school recruiting him the hardest right now, according to Sankey? Washington. He really likes them too.
The thing is folks, this happens every year. Verbal commits you once thought were rock-solid suddenly start looking around, love getting the attention and focus of other schools, and next thing you know they are going somewhere else. We saw it happen to Wulff last year with the whole Asante Cleveland situation, and maybe Sankey will be this year’s “Top Defection” of the class? While it sucks, it’s been going on for years, it’s been happening to pretty much every BCS program big and small, and it will keep happening. Maybe someday they’ll follow the NCAA hoops example and implement an early signing period? But until that time, we’ll see this kind of thing repeat itself year, after year, after year. But what can you do but keep on keepin’ on??
Finally, I know this is about a month late, but I was able to rip the FSN weekly show highlights from the Cal game. We did a full Cal game highlights back in November, but I never actually did the weekly show. The weekly show is cool, of course, with all the sideline stuff you don’t get from the broadcast. But you also get different camera angles of the game, and there are some really good shots of the CJ Mizell BODY SLAM, WWF style, on Shane Vereen! And there is also that big-time hit by Deone Bucannon on Cal’s backup running back, where the helmet pops off after the impact. Check it out after the read more:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJN5dyywT08&w=425&h=344]
Last thing – TOMORROW we should have full Apple Cup highlights. Normally we try to get those types of things to you the week after it’s happened. But hey, it was a tough loss, and to be honest I didn’t really feel like getting to it right away. It’s tough because we lost an emotional, hard-fought game in the waning moments against our bitter rival. But believe it or not, after going through it again, there WERE some very good things that happened in that game (at least offensively anyway…). I think we will all feel a little bit better after watching it tomorrow. You know, better in like how we felt after beating UW in 2005? Like this??
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_RdF-uLRp4&w=425&h=344]
We’ll always have the Trandon Harvey bubble screen, Jerome Harrison’s dominance, and Will Derting’s last game while playing on basically one leg! And the QB, Brink. A lot of mixed feelings on the 2005 version of #10, but it’s hard to argue with some of those throws he made in that game. And of course, his Apple Cup record as a starting QB (3-1, best in WSU history).
All for now. Enjoy your Thursday, and GO COUGS!
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