Baylor Football Receives Commit #11: S Taion Sells-Warner

This may shock you to learn, but Baylor Football actually received two verbal commitments yesterday (Sunday), not just one. I decided to hold off on reporting the second for a while after the first, despite the fact that they were very nearly simultaneous commitments, because of the euphoria of ROBBIE F'ING RHODES, and then I got distracted by the ohmygodwhy-ness from the baseball game.

The result was that Baylor's latest commitment (after Rhodes, obviously) didn't get the attention he deserved. We are going to change that right now! Here are his vitals:

Name: Taion Sells-Warner
Position: S
Height: 5-11
Weight: 180
40 time: 4.43
Bench: 305
Squat: 560
Vertical: 37"
Links/Ranks: Rivals (3*, 5.5), Scout (2*, #84 S), 247Sports (3*, 86), ESPN (3*, 76)
Major Offers: Baylor, Arizona State, Kansas, West Virginia, Iowa, Houston, Colorado

Right away you'll notice that Taion doesn't have the rankings or the offers of Robbie Rhodes, but few do. The position he plays and the way he plays it may put Sells (I've seen him listed as "Taion Sells" and "Taion Sells-Warner" so we'll go with Sells just for the sake of brevity) in almost the same ballpark (not quite as high) as a recruit, however. Sells is an athletic, ball-hawking safety with excellent speed. Size is an issue-- Sells is on the smaller end of the spectrum in height and weight, particularly when dealing with taller receivers of the Big 12-- but we're probably not going to attract safeties yet that have size, speed, and ability. At our place in the recruiting world, we're pretty much choosing two of the three attributes and doing the best we can. Our defensive staff prioritizes speed above all else, and when you find a combination of speed and ability like that of Sells, you absolutely take it. The bench/squat numbers are also exceptional for a player of his size.

Sells is the first true safety recruit in the 2013 class, but I don't think he'll be the last. The staff targeted Austin Jupe out of San Antonio as our other safety recruit in this class to good effect; BearsTruth is reporting that Jupe has cut his list to just Oklahoma State and Baylor. With Taion coming in on the defensive side, we now have 5 offensive and 6 defensive recruits. I like the balance of it, but I would expect to see more offensive pieces, particularly on the offensive line, targeted soon. The bad news is that we seem to have struck out so far with our major OL targets. Hopefully that will change in the coming months as the staff evaluates talent at the camps and familiarizes itself with some of the lesser-known players in our great state.

As always, I tried to embed Sells-Warner's (switched it up that time on you!) highlight videos, but the pickings are scarce on youtube and his HUDL account is private. Until we get something visible outside of the subscription-based services, we're probably out of luck. Check back periodically; I'm not going to stop looking.