Hawaii OL Blake Muir Transferring to Baylor over offers from Georgia Tech and Oregon State

Blake, according to the blog for his Australian team the Southland Seahawks, chose Baylor over offers from Georgia Tech and Oregon State, among others. The blog says he whittled it down to those 3 from an original list of 5. It seems Baylor swayed the big man by giving him the chance to play with his younger brother, who may have taken the greyshirting spot we were saving for Brian Pullen.

Baylor has attempted to recruit more in the Pacific Rim recently through Associate Head Coach Brian Norwood and may now be trying to establish some kind of a foothold in Australia, where American football is still in its infancy but club teams are starting to take off in popularity. Briles is no stranger to recruiting overseas beginning with his time at Houston and continuing through this past season, when the Bears welcomed the first English player in school history in DT Jason Osei. I certainly don't see a problem with looking overseas for talent, especially in relatively unknown areas where players like Osei and Muir may be present but simply lacking in experience.

The latest posts on the blog say that Muir will sit out his sophomore year at Baylor, meaning that he's probably already taken a redshirt season (2011) and played one year as a redshirt freshman. That would give him two more years to play two after 2013, when he will presumably work to gain strength and weight with Coach Kaz. It's not a given that he turns into anything special for the Bears, but our coaches apparently thought enough of him to offer him a spot this year and his brother one in the next, so that's something. Getting a player with some experience could help alleviate some of our depth issues on the OL down the road, as well.

Sean, the younger Muir, will presumably have 3 years to play 3 after he comes in, but he might have a fourth if he greyshirts in 2013. I'm not sure.

As far as highlights go, there are quite a few videos about Mr. Muir to choose from. He apparently has a cadre of videographers interested in his progress in the States. I chose to post the one below (despite the fact that it's from 2009) for reasons that should seem obviously after only a few seconds. You just don't see that many highlight videos that begin with someone running up a sandy hill.

Welcome to Baylor, Muirs!