Weis on the Offensive Recruits

Here’s some of the highlights from Weis’s presser on Wednesday talking about the offensive recruits in this class.

Dayne Crist – QB

But this guy showed during recruiting — always when you’re looking for quarterbacks, you’re looking for the intangibles, and one of the biggest things is that special leadership that they can show on or off the field. Well, watching him with his high school team, you could see that it was on the field. But what he’s done for us off the field rivals only Braxston in the grand scheme of things in the recruiting process.

He was obviously down at the All American game and was Parade Prep All American. He’s one of the six finalists in the Army All American Player of the Year. But one thing that I really like to look at when you have a quarterback is the touchdown to interception ratio, and this year he completed just under 60 percent of his passes for over 2,100 yards, but he threw 16 touchdown passes and one interception. I told him that would be okay if he kept that ratio. I told him that would be okay.

Trevor Robinson – OL

He’s a physically tough player. He’s a big man when you see him. He doesn’t look like a freshmen when you see him walking around. He enjoys contact, plays hard on every down. He’s a very, very intelligent student, but he’s also a very intelligent football player. He’s one of those students of the game.

Braxston Cave – OL

The thing about Braxston that really, really has been wonderful is he has been one of the key people in this recruiting class as far as recruiting this class. A lot of times your own players are the guys that help recruit the class, and between Braxston and Dayne Crist — I mean, Braxston Cave, his mom, I don’t know how many pasta dinners she’s made, but it seems like every time everyone comes in town, they’re all hanging at Braxston’s house. His parents have been great. They’ve opened their doors.

Lane Clelland – OL

Even though he right now is only at about 270 because he’s wrestling, he’s a heavyweight wrestler, he’s about 6’5″, 270, and the reason his weight stayed down is he has to stay under 275 pounds because over 275 they don’t let you wrestle, so it’s kind of kept his weight down.

I don’t think he’ll have — if you take a look at his brother Lance who played at Northwestern, I don’t think you have to worry about him being a big man because he will be. He’s athletic, he’s got great footwork. I think he’s one of the top tackles athletically that I’ve seen in not only the northeast but around this year. He was at the Army All American game, and don’t be misconstrued when you see him at 270 right now because a lot of that is by design as he’s deep into the wrestling season.

Mike Golic Jr. – OL

This kid is true center who plays with great leverage and great effort. He’s also a long snapper, which Lane has some long snapping ability, as well. He’s a long snapper that I could see competing right away. He was down at the All American game and was All State in Connecticut as a junior and senior.

Joseph Fauria – TE

I’m looking at this kid. At the time he’s about 6’7″, about 230. I said, he’s not going to be playing for me; I’m not going to be coaching in the NFL anymore. He said, he’s a freshman. I said, nice to know you. Then it turned out he was a freshman in high school. This is one big muchacho now. He’s every bit of 6’7″, might be taller, 6’7″, 250. He’s got a great combination of size and athletic ability. He can block, he can catch. He had 35 receptions for 516 yards and eight touchdowns this year.

Kyle Rudolph – TE

But this is a guy who’s a dynamic type of athlete who’s a First Team All American by USA Today. He had 37 catches for 673 and 11 touchdowns. He was one of the 11 finalists for the Maxwell Award. Like I said, he’s an accomplished basketball player, second leading scorer in Elder history, and he holds the school record for career rebounds with 568 last we checked. But I’m telling you what, these two tight ends are two tight ends that are going to press to get involved in the mix pretty quickly in their career because they’re both big and athletic.

Michael Floyd – WR

He plays basketball, he runs track, he’s active at the school and the community for that matter. He’s one of those special guys. Obviously if you watched the All American game, all those quarterbacks were looking to throw it to him as much as they possibly could.

We’re really excited to have Michael on board, and we think, like we are with all three of these receivers, think that they’re guys who can go ahead and press the issue early on in their careers.

John Goodman – WR

He played in the All American game, attended summer camp since he was a freshman. We know a lot about him. He played the majority of this year at quarterback. By the way, he thinks he can start there here, too. He leads his team — he led his team to an undefeated regular season. They lost in the state semis. He was named All State in Indiana by the Associated Press as a senior. He’s one of the 12 finalists for Mr. Football. He plays basketball. He’s another guy who’s a very, very good basketball player, as you hear a common theme.

Deion Walker – WR

He was at the Under Armour All American game and committed at that time. As a junior he had 50 receptions and seven touchdowns. He plays basketball, and their team right now is 15 and 5. So here’s another one of these guys that between basketball team and wrestling team, the only one I have to worry about is Fleming because he’d be bowling.

Jonas Gray – RB

I mean, he’s calling our coaches up last night, making sure everything is going good in recruiting. He’s making the phone calls, he’s waking coaches up. Are we okay here, are we okay there. It was really, really interesting to watch this group of players. We can’t text the players, but they were wearing each other out now, and Jonas was one of the ring leaders and we’re really happy to have him.