Baylor Football Receives Commit #10: WR Robbie Rhodes

The news Baylor fans have been waiting for has finally come in: Southwest HS WR Robbie Rhodes has given his oral commitment to Art Briles and Baylor University! I believe that Scout had the news first, but I'm not sure because I wasn't around exactly when it broke.

If you will recall, I did a post about Mr. Rhodes at the end of April, when it was reported that his final two were Texas, who was about to offer (they did) and Baylor, who had led to that point. Throughout May, insiders on Baylor boards told us that it was only a matter of time and the 4* would be a Bear. That time has now come.

Here are the vital statistics for Baylor's newest commit:
Position: WR
Height: 6-1
Weight: 186
40 time: 4.40
Vertical: 36"
Links/Ranks: Rivals (4*, 5.8), Scout (4*, #7 WR), 247Sports (4*, 95, #48 in Top247), MaxPreps, ESPN (4*, 87)
Major Offers: Baylor, Alabama, Texas, Oklahoma, Texas A&M, TCU, Texas Tech, Missouri

Rhodes' commitment marks the biggest victory in Baylor's 2013 class so far. Rhodes is an outstanding talent at a need position in this class and someone to build around on offense. He has also been quoted as saying that his commitment would be the end of his recruiting-- meaning that he wouldn't take any other visits-- and that he is interested in doing whatever he can to help recruit for the school he chooses. From the time I wrote that update on 4/30, Rhodes has shot up the charts of just about every recruiting service due to an extremely strong performance at the state track meet, two huge offers from Alabama and Texas, and extremely positive reviews of his speed and pass-catching from 7-on-7 competitions.

Baylor's 2013 WR class now includes Rhodes, fellow 4* Quan Jones, and the lesser-known Kyle Fulk. Forced to guess, I'd say Briles is probably satisfied with the class but would certainly take a commit from someone like Ricky Seals-Jones. It's possible that they view him as a QB/ATH/TE, though, and wouldn't count him as a WR. Either way, I expect that SBNation Recruiting will have something up shortly about Baylor's newest WR, and I will update this post when they do. For now, I've put Rhodes' highlight videos below the jump in case you want to see them.

Oh, and Baylor should receive a second commitment later this afternoon from a certain safety, so be on the lookout for that!

JUST AS I EXPECTED, SBNation's Wescott Eberts wrote a glowing report about Rhodes over on the mothership that you should absolutely check out. My favorite part:

It's possible that Rhodes is even more explosive than [Kendall] Wright, who has run a sub-4.4 40. At the Texas state track meet this spring, one of the most impressive sights in the entire event was Rhodes overtaking the Lancaster anchor late in the 4x200m relays to pull out the gold medal -- the extra gear to do so against some of the fastest track athletes in the entire country was chill-inducing.

MORE INFO:

Here is the reaction from HornsNation, ESPN's homertastic Longhorn news bureau. There is a quote from Rhodes in the free portion of the article. I'm assuming none of you have subscriptions there because why would you?

Robbie Rhodes (junior offensive highlights) (via 247SportsStudio)

FW Southwest Raider WR ties national touchdown reception mark 10-14-11 Robbie Rhodes (via DIY1977)