Happy National Signing Day!

Finishing Off The Day – I’m back at home and have thawed out my frozen body parts.  What a great day it was for Seattle.  I will never forget it.

Nothing unpredictable happened to the Huskies.  All of the verbal commits heading into the day ended up signing with the Dawgs and they had two players sign who announced their commitment today.  Those two are Devin Burleson, who is a 6’8″ offensive lineman, and Brayden Lenius, a 6’5″ receiver.

All in all, the class ended up ranked 36th in the nation by Scout (that doesn’t include commit Jamie Bryant, that would have had minimal impact though) and 7th in the Pac-12.  A great accomplishment for a transition class.

We’ll have more on all of the commits over the next week.  As for now, know that it’s a very impressive class for the short amount of time Coach Petersen had to put it together.  Go Dawgs!

Hale’s in! – I’m out the door.  But, Naijel Hale is officially in.  A 4-star corner.

Off to the parade – Alright, everybody!  I’m off to the parade.  Again, we’re waiting on 6 more letters.  Lenius announces at 1 P.M.  Hale and Turner should be announced by Washington anytime and I don’t have a time table for the other three.  Coach Petersen’s press conference is at 3 P.M. and I’ll have updates from that and more tonight.  Have a great day, everyone!

Two Bellevue Offensive Linemen to Walk-On – Morgan Richey and Max Richmond, two linemen from Bellevue high school, have decided to walk-on at U-Dub.  They both turned down scholarship offers to come play here.  Petersen has done an outstanding job at Bellevue in such a short time.  Let’s hope it stays that way for years to come.

Turner and Hale should be Dawgs – From the things I see on Twitter, it looks like it’s only a matter of time before the school announces that Hale and Turner will be Huskies.  That leaves the Huskies at 20.  I would guess Dissly would be the last of the verbals to send in his papers and Lavon Washington might not sign with the Huskies.  I don’t have any facts to support this, just a few insights and a guess.  It might be the other way around.  That would put the Huskies at 21 and then there are three surprises left to fill out the class.  Again, I’m counting on Lenius and Burleson to be Huskies.  I’m still unclear on the last one.  Kalen Ballage would be another name to look out for but that would be a huge surprise and seems unlikely at this point.

Headed off – I’m off to get ready for the parade.  I’ll try to update one more time before I actually leave.  Go Dawgs and go Hawks!

Who we’re waiting on – From what I can tell the guys that have verbally committed and not been announced yet are CB Naijel Hale, DE Will Dissly, S Lavon Washington and OL John Turner.  I’m not sure who here wouldn’t sign but we’ll wait and see.  This doesn’t include a few surprises.

CB Brandon Lewis – I believe Lewis is the 3rd corner to have signed today.  He’s from California and comes in at 5’11” 185 lbs.  Lewis played some receiver in high school and has some good coverage skills.  This DB class will really pay dividends down the road.

17/24 – We’ve got 17 players who have signed thus far.  There haven’t been any surprises and everything has gone to plan.  I’m going to stick around for a few more minutes but then I have to get ready to brave the cold and head over to Seattle.  We’ll see if anyone else trickles through here in the next few minutes.

DL Kaleb McGary – Here’s another big name.  I’m still pretty surprised the Huskies got Kaleb.  He is 6’7″ 285 lbs. and currently lives in Fife, Washington.  He is the 3rd (of 4) 4-star players to sign with the Huskies.  McGary projects really well as an offensive tackle but he’s starting out as a defensive end.  I’m hoping he turns out to be like one of those tall Stanford defensive ends that they have had over the last few years.  Although we won’t see him faking injuries.  This kid oozes potential.

OL Jesse Sosebee – Another large person.  Sosebee is the second offensive linemen (still a few to come) in the class.  He is 6’6″ 300 lbs. and will probably play guard.  Sosebee may be more of a project than James but Strausser (the offensive line coach) has done great work with some of these ‘project’ guys before.

OL Matt James – Somehow they snuck in Matt James in between posts about Budda.  Sorry I skipped over you big fella.  James is the first of the offensive linemen to get his papers in.  He is from Idaho and is 6’5″ 270 lbs.  He’ll probably end up a guard but does have some potential as a tackle.

Budda’s In! – It’s finally official!  Budda Baker is a Husky.  Budda is the top rated player in the state of Washington (by a fairly large margin) and was committed to Oregon before rethinking things and coming to UW.  He is the recruit everyone is most excited about.  He will play free safety for the Dawgs and maybe a little bit on offense as well.  He’s 5’10” 180 lbs.  and from Bellevue High School.

WR Dante Pettis – Pettis is a 6’1″ 175 lb. receiver out of California.  His dad is a former major league baseball player and his cousin is Austin, an NFL receiver who played under Coach Pete at Boise.  Pettis is one of the better athletes in this class.

A 4-star confirmed – The school hasn’t announced it but Naijel Hale has confirmed that he will be a Husky.  He’s one of the big names who hasn’t been announced by the school yet along with Budda Baker and Kaleb McGary.

Not Many Rumors – There’s not many rumors floating around of who is decommitting or committing today.  Usually these things start to leak out but I haven’t seen anything about that yet.  I’ll let you know if I do.

Halfway There – If Gregg Bell is correct (he usually is because he’s a UW employee) the Huskies have received half of the letters that they’ll receive today.  So far, 12 are in and they are expecting 24.

CB Darren Gardenhire – Gardenhire is another one of the DB’s in this class.  He’s a funny guy on Twitter and had a good time with the process, trying to recruit other prospects to UW.  Gardenhire is 6 foot, 180 lbs. from Long Beach, California.  Gardenhire listed as a corner is a surprise, as he played safety in high school.  The coaches must have seen something they liked in his coverage skills.

K Tristan Vizcaino – Well, it wasn’t the big name I was thinking but this is a great get.  Getting a kicker in this class was a huge need and was accomplished when the staff flipped Vizcaino from WSU in January.  Vizcaino is generally rated in the top 10 kickers in the nation as far as recruits go.  He may punt, as well.  He’s 6’2″ 195 lbs.  Big kicker.

Questions – If you have any questions about a player or the process, leave them in the comments and I’ll get to them by the end of the day.

DE Shane Bowman – Bowman is a defensive end out Bellevue High School.  He flipped to UW after being committed to Oregon State for quite a while.  Bowman is 6’4″ and 250 lbs.  He may have to put on some weight but he’s got a great motor.  Coach Pete seemed to really make Bellevue a priority upon his arrival and that’s a great thing.  I’m guessing that we’ve got a big name coming up next.

Who’s from where?  So far there are 3 guys from Washington state and 6 guys from California in the class.  This is pretty normal.  I’ll keep updating on location throughout the day because I find that pretty interesting.

CB Sidney Jones – Sidney Jones is a 6’1″ 170 lb. corner out of California.  He also played receiver in high school.  The UW flipped him from Utah, and he had several other Pac-12 offers.  I like to see tall corners like this and I’ll be interested if the coaches go after that body type at corner.  I’m glad to see Jones is officially in because Utah was recruiting him hard to flip back to their side.  This guy is one of my favorite players of this class.

Eight Players In – So far we’ve got 3 defensive linemen, 1 running back, 1 quarterback, 1 tight end, 1 linebacker and 1 safety.

DL Jamie Bryant – Jamie Bryant was a member of last year’s class and was asked to grayshirt, meaning he delayed his enrollment until this year.  It’s great that the new coaches honored this commitment.  Bryant is a big guy, coming in at 6’5″ 300 lbs.  He is from Tumwater High School.  He is listed as a defensive lineman but it’s thought that he could be on the offensive line at UW, as well.  With them listing him on the defensive side of things, I imagine that’s where he’ll start.

Moving Pretty Quickly – We’re seven guys into the class.  All 7 have come in the last 20 minutes.  Expect there to be a few more in the next half an hour and then for news to come a little slower throughout the day.  As far as what I’m seeing in Twitter, the Bellevue guys have all done their paperwork and it should be in soon.

S Jojo McIntosh – Jojo is one of (at least) 3 safeties in this class.  He is from Chaminade High School in California and followed Coach Pete from Boise.  Jojo is 6’1″ 195 and the second player on the UW roster named Jojo.  What are the chances?  He’s also a part of this DB recruiting class that is rated 2nd in the country by Scout (behind Tennessee, who somehow had 34 commits as of yesterday).

QB K.J. Carta-Samuels – The first of the four star prospects to get their paperwork in is the quarterback of the class.  Carta-Samuels was a long time Vanderbilt commit but when James Franklin left he ended up choosing UW over Vandy, Penn State, and Boise.  He’s 6’2″ 225 and the 4th straight 4 star quarterback recruit to come to UW.

TE James Sample – James Sample’s papers are in.  He’s the first of the Washington high school players to be announced (they expect 5 on scholarship).  Sample is from Newport High School and is a 6’5″ tight end, weighing in at 245 pounds.  He was a 3 star prospect in most places.

DE Jaylen Johnson – Jaylen is a 6’3″ 245 lb. defensive end out of California.  He is another guy the coaches beat out BSU for.  He was also considering several Pac-12 schools.  He is one of the defensive linemen I am most excited about in this class.

DT Greg Gaines is in – You want beef?  You got beef!  Greg Gaines is a bulky man.  He is a 6’1″  305 lb. defensive tackle out of California.  He is one of the guys that followed Coach Pete from Boise to UW.  Again, just a large human.  Most services ranked him as a three-star player.

Commit #2 – The second player to sign with the Huskies is Jomon Dotson.  He is listed at 5’11” 175 (this is probably generous from the coaching staff) and is a running back out of California.  He chose the UW over Colorado.  A very small but quick running back.  He also played corner in high school but is listed as a RB for UW.

More on Lewis – Lewis will need to add a little bit of weight to play linebacker in the Pac-12.  He was a safety in college but it’s thought that he’ll be moved to outside linebacker once he’s on campus.  The UW is announcing him as a linebacker.

Our First Husky of 2014 – The first player to send in his papers to the University of Washington is Drew Lewis.  He is a linebacker out of Eastlake High School (Sammmamish) and 6’2″ 200.  He had committed under Sark, looked around once he left and then ended up back at U-Dub.

How big will this class be?  Expect this class to be about 24 players big.  During the season it looked like this would be a smaller class but because of the roster attrition involved in a coaching change the size of this incoming class grew a little bit.

More on the surprises – Gregg Bell just said in a live chat that 1 or 2 players who verbally committed to UW may sign elsewhere and expect 3 surprises today.  So, there you go.  I don’t know who the third surprise is but I have a good idea on the first two.

Any Surprises?  The original idea of doing this live blog was to cover any Signing Day surprises.  There are usually some guys who will commit (or more often decommit) to the Huskies on Signing Day.  Today the Huskies are still waiting on a few players who could become Dawgs.  OL Devin Burleson and WR Brayden Lenius are expected to be Dawgs by the end of today.  Both are somewhat exciting prospects with a lot of potential but not the most polished players.  Others that could become Huskies are Dejuan Butler, a JC cornerback, and Khalil Oliver, a safety deciding between Oregon and UW.  Other than that, it would be a real surprise.

Opening Thoughts – When Steve Sarkisian announced that he was taking the USC job, this Husky class was never going to be great.  Even if Sark had stayed, this class probably wasn’t going to be great.  There wasn’t a very deep class in the state of Washington and while the Huskies were in on some very good players, it seemed unlikely that they would end up at U-Dub.  Chris Petersen and staff have done a great job at salvaging this class.  There were two people committed to the Huskies when Coach Pete took over (some had decommitted after Sark left), now there are 21 verbally committed and probably 1-3 more who could end up signing with the Dawgs today.  The coaching staff have done a great job getting Washington prospects, something Sark didn’t do as well, and filling needs.  While there isn’t as much star power as the last few recruiting classes, this class looks very solid and capable of moving the program along.  There’s a lot of good depth and a few names to look out for.

When Do Things Start Happening?  Right now, no faxes are coming in to any west coast school because a recruit isn’t allowed to send in the LOI until 7 AM.  Once that comes around, some papers will start to come in and the Huskies will have people officially signed to play for their football team.  The faxes will come in all day, so there might not be very many before I take off for the parade.  I’ll try to keep up until then.  The Good Guys will have a recap post or two on all the recruits that sign sometime over the next week.

Good morning, Dawg fans!  Happy National Signing Day!  We’re getting this thing started and I’m rubbing sleep from my eyes.  Apparently downtown is getting packed already for this afternoons parade and the whole town is ready to party.  I’ll be updating this blog fairly often this morning, depending on how much information that is being let out.  I will be back tonight, after the parade to give a recap of everything happened.  Enjoy!