Idaho recruiting update – 1/29

(DeAnza College quarterback Josh McCain makes it six scholarship quarterbacks for the Vandals, and a healthy competition)

UPDATE Jan. 29: Paul Petrino and his staff haven’t been shy handing out offers, and it looks like there’s going to be as many as 30 letters of intent being faxed in to the Kibbie Dome football offices. Through twitter it seems three other players have announced their intentions to play for Idaho.

Junior college quarterback Josh McCain is one. McCain will join the team in the fall as a junior and, likely, will enter himself in to the competition with whoever emerges in the spring as No. 1 on the depth chart.

McCain presents the dual-threat dimension to the competition, as seen from his highlight tape. McCain might bring the strongest arm to the competition, but what he may not bring is consistency throwing the ball intermediately. He has spurts of gaudy production but also had spurts of low completion percentage. With six scholarship quarterbacks on the roster, and only one likely to redshirt, is it possible Idaho could be looking at a two-quarterback system? McCain and Neyer/Chalich/Davis could provide the two dimensions to do so.

Idaho also picked up yet another commitment from a Kansas City area player, this time in interior offensive lineman Joseph Gibson, who apparently also visited Kansas and Missouri (no offers though). Gibson shows pretty good strength and decent mobility for his size. It’s fairly likely somewhere in the interior is where he’ll stay.

Jevante Reed, a running back and outside linebacker from Chula Vista, Calif. is allegedly also headed to Idaho, per a tweet from his cousin. We listed him as a soft verbal while we work to confirm that commitment.

Butte College defensive back Solomon Means, who visited Idaho two weekends ago, has committed to Houston per his coach.

So looks like Idaho gonna be where I go, just committed

— Joshua McCain (@_spotlightbz) January 20, 2013

Off to Idaho #vandals

— Joseph Gibson (@gymbag_77) January 26, 2013

Update: As usually is the case the last few weekends of January this is when recruiting hits full steam with prospects around the country, committed or not, taking their final official visits to set the stage for national signing day.

This is especially the case for schools like Idaho breaking in a new coaching staff.

Idaho hosted a successful weekend of official visits last weekend getting two more verbal commitments — From Montlake Terrace, Wash. safety Mason Stone and Rancho Cucamonga, Calif. cornerback Armond Hawkins.

Then, Wednesday night, Idaho got this commitment.

Some of you may remember Austin Rehkow as the kid in Spokane, Wash. who hit the 67-yard field goal at the end of regulation to get his team in to overtime.

Idaho also received a commitment from Capital HS (Boise) OT Steven Matlock during the weekend.

By our count Idaho is now at 26 commitments, including the junior college early enrollees. 25 is the maximum number of players a team is allowed to sign per signing day. Of course, Idaho still has offers out and expects more players to commit.

There are a few ways Idaho can still do this. One, is that some, if not all, of the junior college kids signed in the early signing day could be attributed to the class of 2012 since former coach Robb Akey did not sign a full class last year. Another is a recruit could gray shirt, meaning he would not enroll in the school until Winter semester 2014 – therefore he would count toward the next class and be a true freshman.

Some big names Idaho is still waiting on include Lakewood, Wash. WR Sammie Long and Los Angeles (Salesian) DT Christopher Gonzalez

Currently Idaho has seven members of its 2013 class inked and enrolled at the school for Spring semester, from the early Junior College signing period.

Previous comments (Jan. 14)

It’s interesting to note how nationally Idaho is recruiting, as it’s likely that Petrino is using some of the connections he built as offensive coordinator at Arkansas in his recruiting approach right now.

Now Petrino’s attention has turned to the Pacific Northwest, where he made it clear he wanted to be able to recruit hard during his introductory press conference.

Washington soft verbal commit Sammie Long visited last weekend (Jan. 11). Lakes HS (Lakewood, Wash.) head coach Dave Miller said Long enjoyed his trip to Moscow but that he’ll also take his visits to Eastern Washington and Colorado State before making a decision. That decision will likely come around signing day.

Sean Kramer

Sean Kramer is a 24-year old University of Idaho student majoring in Journalism. He's been a sports writer at The Argonaut since the fall of 2011.

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