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Baylor Junior Day Primer / Open Thread

Baylor's first Junior Day of the 2016 cycle is a mere hours away, and the Bears will welcome a star-studded group.

By Mark C. Moore
Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports

Tomorrow, several dozen of the finest recruits in the Class of 2016 will make their way to Waco, Texas for Baylor's first Junior Day of the upcoming recruiting cycle.  It's going to be a huge day for the program as current high school juniors (upcoming seniors) meet the coaches (some for the first time) and take in the sights and sounds of Baylor's beautiful campus.  That includes our new state-of-the-art stadium on the banks of the Brazos, since tomorrow will mark be the first Junior Day in Baylor history with a finished on-campus stadium to show off.  Seeing the reactions there will be fun all by itself.

Before I go any further, BearsCanClimb asked several good questions in the January Recruiting Thread geared toward tomorrow's Junior Day, the answers to which should help explain what's going down tomorrow.

What is Junior Day?

Besides the obvious of HS juniors, what is Junior Day?

Junior Day is a showcase for HS athletes that isn’t actually limited, most of the time, to HS juniors. We have 2016 guys (juniors) as well as 2017s and even 2018s coming in for this one. It’s a time for Baylor to show off to the next crop, make offers if they haven’t already, and push for commitments through contact with the coaching staff.

What do they do on that day?

Tour the campus and facilities, tour the stadium (now that we have a nice one), meet with the coaches and some players, etc. etc. They are not allowed to participate in any athletic activities with coaches watching. You can’t put them through workouts or anything like that.

Did any ’15 recruits attend Jr day last year?

Nearly all of our early commitments, for sure, and quite a few (maybe in the hundreds) of recruits that didn’t commit to us.  Matthew Tennant did a great write-up following last year's Junior Day that should help you understand a bit more who was there and what they did.

Is it effective?

Extremely. I can’t recall the last Junior Day where we didn’t get at least one commit, probably more than that. It’s typically a very good day for Baylor Football with commits mingling with other recruits of their class, recruits we’ve never hosted before getting a look at the campus, etc. It’s an exciting time.

Tomorrow's Attendees:

Each of the major recruiting sites (BearsTruth, SicEmSports, and BearsIllustrated) has a running list of recruits confirmed or reported to be visiting tomorrow.  Without their permission, I'm not going to steal their lists to post them here.  But I will link to them to try to convince you to subscribe to any of our three great sites.

BearsTruth Junior Day Lists -- Offensive & Defensive
SicEmSports Junior Day List -- Baylor Rivals
BearsIllustrated Junior Day List -- Baylor Scout

Honestly, this is the perfect time to try out one of these fine sites if you don't already have a subscription since all have active offers for free months, merchandise, or whatever else.  Do it now and you can probably get a trial period through National Signing Day next week while getting a taste of the hard work of our recruiting sites.*

*No, I'm not being paid for trying to help them out in any way, form, or fashion.

In addition to those lists, several players have indicated on Twitter and elsewhere that they are attending.  That includes, as of this writing, all of our current commits and several other notable players listed below.  This is just a fraction of the recruits confirmed to be attending, which was around 65 the last time I checked.

Again, this is not a complete list. All are 2016s unless otherwise listed.

Commits:

QB: Zach Smith -- 4*
RB: Kameron Martin -- 4*
WR: Tren'Davian Dickson -- 4*
OL: Patrick Hudson -- 5*
CB: Grayland Arnold -- 3/4*

Recruits:

QB: Reese Shaw -- UR
QB: Chris Robison (2017) -- 4*
QB: Avery Davis (2017) -- UR
OG: Tope Imade -- UR
OT: J.P. Urquidez -- 4*
OT: Anthonie Thomas -- UR
WR: Devin Duvernay -- 4*
WR: Jeremy Smith -- 3/4*
WR: Tyrell Alexander -- UR
WR: Jaylon Jackson (2017) -- UR
WR/OLB: Zach Farrar -- UR

DT: Braylon Jones -- 3/4*
DT: Jordan Elliott -- 3*
DT: Kendell Jones -- 4* (rumored, unconfirmed)
DT: Michael Williams -- 4* (bringing his mom, too)
DE: Brandon Bowen -- 3/4*
DE: Isaiah Chambers -- 4*
DE: Mark Jackson -- 4*
DE: McTelvin Agim -- 4*
DE: Kedrick James -- UR
LB: Dontavious Jackson -- 4*
LB: Clifton Lewis -- 3*
LB: Jeffrey McCulloch -- 3/4*
LB: Jordan Carmouche -- 3*
LB: Baron Browning (2017) -- 4*
LB: Hunter Donnelly -- 3*
CB: Parrish Cobb -- UR
CB: Obi Eboh -- 3*
CB: Joshua Drayden -- UR
CB/SS: Chris Brown -- UR
S: Eric Monroe -- 4/5*
S: Innis Gaines -- UR
S: Derrick Tucker (2017) -- 4*

ATH: Lil'Jordan Humphrey -- UR
ATH: Kofi Boateng -- 3*
ATH: Trey Baldwin -- UR

As I've said repeatedly, this is just a fraction of the recruits confirmed or rumored to be there tomorrow.  Baylor billed this an invite-only event, meaning you had to receive an invite to come, but it isn't really invite-only because you can't do that.  Calling it that is just a way to keep it relatively small so the best recruits get the most attention and you don't have 200 guys show up, half or more of whom don't have any business actually being there.

We won't know for sure who is there tomorrow until the reports come in.  I believe that each of the three sites I linked above will be there (but I'm not sure), so check your favorite alongside ODB.  We'll have an Open Thread for updates starting in the early afternoon.

In case you never saw it, this was the invite:

Smooth. Sic 'em.

NEW COMMITS:

DT Jordan Elliott (HUDL)

Let's hope for more!

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