The Cincinnati Bearcats Football Recruiting Class of 2014

The following post is written by Stuart Gilchrist. Follow him on twitter.

If you follow collegiate athletics even remotely, you know that today is National Signing Day. This is the day where coaching staffs from across the country get to see their hard work pay off, thousands of high school and junior college prospects sign their name on the dotted line to become collegiate athletes. Last year, Bearcat fans were impressed with the class that Coach Tuberville and staff were able to put together in such a short amount of time. This year’s class tallied 24 new additions to the Bearcats roster across multiple positions of need. As with any Signing Day, the Bearcats lost some commitments and added some with some more possibly on the way. Here is how TT & Staff did after all the ink dried:

The Bad

There were multiple defections this year that happened on Signing Day. The first occurred when Georgia offered commit tight end Hunter Atkinson late last night. After discussing it with his family, he decided to flip his commitment from the Bearcats to the Bulldogs. It is understandable that a kid would want to play for his state school and obviously Georgia wasn’t comfortable at where they stood with their other tight end targets and offered. There was rumor that Coach Tuberville visited Atkinson during a snowstorm just to persuade him to come to Cincy, so this one probably hurts to him more than others.

T

he second occurred when longtime Bearcat commit Spencer Williams decided to sign with Missouri over Cincinnati. Williams had been committed to Cincinnati since May. After his commitment he received offers from Auburn, Georgia Tech, Missouri and Nebraska among many others. It was common belief that Williams would not stick with his commitment. Word got out that Tuberville and staff were not all too happy that Williams took official visits to Missouri and Nebraska in the last few weekends up to Signing Day. Either way, Spencer Williams was looked at as a prospect with tremendous upside. His addition to this class would have been huge.

The final defection came when outside linebacker commit Kaleb Harris decided to attend Marshall University with other former UC commit Nathaniel Devers. This was also expected since Harris seemed to have some academic issues, and it came out that he didn’t see himself fitting in a “big city.” In addition, there are several other linebacker commits in this class so room was going to be tight for another linebacker.

There are 2 situations to keep an eye on. Missing from the above list are commits Davin Pierce and Joel Thompson. Both signed with UC but they may have some issues with grades so compliance will have to deal with that and make a judgment on whether one or both can play or will have to go the junior college route.

The Good

Perhaps the biggest story of the day, Kevin Mouhon decided to join his brother Silverberry and become a Bearcat. He had offers from just about everywhere and was named to the U.S. Army All American Bowl. He is Cincinnati’s highest rated commit and could have an impact right away.  Another pleasant surprise came when defensive linemen Keith Minor committed to the Bearcats over New Mexico and Cortez Broughton committed over Middle Tennessee State yesterday. Minor had committed to New Mexico after an official visit and it is possible that the staff knew about the Spencer Williams situation and decided to bring him and Broughton in as a replacement.

Just as I was typing this up, it was announced that athlete Davon Witherspoon has signed with Cincinnati. He took an official visit to Louisville last weekend. After Petrino and staff didn’t answer his calls, he decided to come to Cincinnati. He is more of an under-the-radar type player that could have an impact down the road.

Rankings

The rankings for this recruiting class are as follows:

Going Forward

You may ask, what about next years recruiting class? While it’s early, the staff wanted to pick up a bigger running back but was unable this year so look for them to make that a priority next year. Also, they are looking at several quarterback prospects along with some tight ends since there was not a tight end commit this year. It will be interesting to see what the staff does once spring practice wraps up.