After a week-long layoff we are back with the next installment in the inaugural ODB Football Recruit Impact Rankings! To reacquaint you with where we've been, here are links to The Board, Set 1, Set 2, Set 3, and Set 4. I can feel the excitement building!
Just as a reminder since it has been so long, these rankings are purely subjective and not intended to be value judgments; I am giving you a ranking of our 2012 football recruiting class in terms of how much impact I think they will have on Baylor's football program. In some cases, the pure potential of the player is everything no matter how far away that player might be or how long we have to wait. In others, the proximity of a recruit or the prospect of immediate playing time earns them a higher ranking than otherwise. Position and team need definitely matter; if we had an offensive line with wall-to-wall sophomore 5*s, that obviously leaves less of a chance for a 2012 recruit to play a big role, for example.
Here's where we've been so far:
24. Orion Stewart - S - Midway, HS (Waco, TX)
23. Terrance Singleton - ATH - Memorial HS (Port Arthur, TX)
22. Kaleb Moore - WR - Cypress Fair HS (Cypress, TX
21. Lynx Hawthorne - WR - Refugio HS (Refugio, TX)
20. Devin Chafin - RB - Burkburnett HS (Burkburnett, TX)
19. Patrick Levels - CB - Roosevelt HS (Dallas, TX)
18. Terrell Burt - CB - Wylie HS (Wylie, TX)
17. Kyle Fuller - OL - Wylie HS (Wylie, TX)
16. Shamycheal Chatman - LB - Sealy HS (Sealy, TX)
15. Zorrell Ezell - DT - Humble HS (Humble, TX)
14. Rashodrick Linwood - WR/CB - Linden-Kildare HS (Linden, TX)
13. Tre'von Armstead - OT - Memorial HS (Port Arthur, TX)
12. Dominique Banks - DE - Ryan HS (Denton, TX)
11. Ryan Reid - CB - Sherman HS (Sherman, TX)
10. Jamal Palmer - DE - Boyd HS (McKinney, TX)
9. Eddie Lackey - LB - Riverside CC (Murrieta, CA)
23. Terrance Singleton - ATH - Memorial HS (Port Arthur, TX)
22. Kaleb Moore - WR - Cypress Fair HS (Cypress, TX
21. Lynx Hawthorne - WR - Refugio HS (Refugio, TX)
20. Devin Chafin - RB - Burkburnett HS (Burkburnett, TX)
19. Patrick Levels - CB - Roosevelt HS (Dallas, TX)
18. Terrell Burt - CB - Wylie HS (Wylie, TX)
17. Kyle Fuller - OL - Wylie HS (Wylie, TX)
16. Shamycheal Chatman - LB - Sealy HS (Sealy, TX)
15. Zorrell Ezell - DT - Humble HS (Humble, TX)
14. Rashodrick Linwood - WR/CB - Linden-Kildare HS (Linden, TX)
13. Tre'von Armstead - OT - Memorial HS (Port Arthur, TX)
12. Dominique Banks - DE - Ryan HS (Denton, TX)
11. Ryan Reid - CB - Sherman HS (Sherman, TX)
10. Jamal Palmer - DE - Boyd HS (McKinney, TX)
9. Eddie Lackey - LB - Riverside CC (Murrieta, CA)
That's a pretty stout list, I'd say, and there are still 8 recruits left to rank! Tonight's group, the second-to-last in our countdown, will obviously cover numbers 5-8 in descending order. Made up of mostly defensive players once again, tonight we have the first true QB on the list (in that we know he will be a QB at Baylor), two LBs, and our second JUCO. One of the members of this illustrious group is actually an All-American this season, so head below the jump to find out who!
8. Kendall Ehrlich – LB – Pearland HS (
7. Joey Searcy – DT – Navarro JC (
6. Seth Russell – QB – Garland HS (Garland, TX) – Because I am somewhat of a pessimist, I have been concerned about the QB recruiting at Baylor for the post-RG3 period a lot longer than most. Once it became clear that RG3 wouldn’t come back for his senior season—around about the time he lifted that bronze statue from the podium in NYC—what was once something we could really use became something we absolutely had to have. Without a QB recruit in 2012, we would only have 2 scholarship QBs on the entire roster. Briles and Baylor flirted with several higher-profile recruits like Devin Fuller, Bo Wallace, and even Cyler Miles (if rumors are to be believed) before snagging the former
5. Brian Nance – LB – Trinity HS (Euless, TX) – Typically when I put the HS information on these I have to look it up, but that is not true for Brian Nance, the US Army All-American LB from powerhouse Trinity HS. People familiar with recruiting rankings will wonder why Nance isn’t higher on this list than 5. He is the consensus second-highest ranked defensive recruit in our class, he plays a need position (LB), and he plays it at a level Baylor hasn’t seen in a long time. I didn’t intend to slight him at all by putting him here because I could not possibly have been happier when it became clear that Nance would sign with Baylor. His offer list is tremendous (OU,
Short Recap: Before we get to the final installment, something that occurred to me early on in this process was the completeness of our defensive recruiting. You could easily field an entire defense solely from this recruiting class, and at some point we actually just might do that. If you take the list as a whole, Baylor recruited somewhere between 12 and 14 recruits that will probably end up on defense. Just because I'm obsessive and can do it, I thought I'd put together a defense based solely on these recruits. Remember that we run a modified 4-2-5 defense; we say it's a 4-3, but one of our linebackers plays the "hero" position (this year it was Ahmad Dixon, a converted safety) that is more like a rover. Let's see what that defense might look like:
DE: Magee (strong side), Palmer (weak)
DT: Searcy, Ezell
LB: Nance (ILB), Ehrlich/Lackey (MLB)
Hero: Edwards
CB: Linwood/Burt, Reid
S: Griffin, Singleton/Stewart
I don't know about you, but that defense looks pretty decent to me. I'm guessing a bit on Edwards playing the Hero rather than safety. He might have to bulk up a bit to be a real asset in run support, but if Dixon could do it this season, I am confident that Edwards can, as well.