Weis on the Rest of the Defensive Recruits

Since there weren’t a lot of defensive recruits in this class outside of Manti Te’o, I combined this into one post.

Weis on EJ Banks:

He’s made all state in both his junior and senior years. This guy has played offense, he’s played defense, he was a great high school quarterback. He played DB, as well. You know, they look at him as a special teams guy, as well, and rushed for over a thousand yards and 14 touchdowns as a senior and threw for over a thousand yards, as well. He played basketball and track in high school. He’s coming in here to play DB for us.

Weis on Zeke Motta:

He has size and athleticism to either play outside linebacker or safety for us. Very similar to Harrison Smith. Very similar in a lot of different ways. He tallied 137 tackles, eight for loss, three sacks during his senior year in Vero Beach. His first team all state as a senior, where we got to know this kid is he came to our summer camp last year, and that’s where we really were able to forge a very good relationship with both the kid and his dad and the arrow just pointed up from there.

Weis on Tyler Stockton:

He played in the Army All American game and he’s considered one of the best top defensive linemen in New Jersey, and also interior defensive linemen in the country, as well.  This year he had 68 tackles but 24 of them for a loss, including he had 68 tackles and 24 tackles for loss, and also had nine sacks as a junior. We think he’s a dynamic player and he gets off the ball. He’s got good quickness and he uses his hands and here is another guy we are really happy to have our hands on as we go into the spring.

Weis on Carlo Calabrese:

He’s a dynamic run stopper. He just likes contact. He has great instincts for the ball. He knows what holes to fill. He had 131 tackles and three sacks as a senior, was named first team all state in New Jersey and New Jersey Defensive Player of the Year for this past year.  He’s a rocked up unit. He looks the part. He looks the part like he would be ready to go early in his career.

Weis on Dan Fox:

He’s more of a outside linebacker, more of a Sam type. He’s another guy who attended our summer camp prior to senior year. He’s another guy who plays basketball, as well, for St. Ignatius. He’s a member of the St. Ignatius High School State Championship Football in 2008, that finished ranked 12th nationally by the USA Today. He’s a former high school teammate of current player John Ryan and Robby Parris. We like the school and we like players that come out of the school that fit our mentality, and you know, this kid has got good size, good size for the outside linebacker position and we think that he’ll be able to compete for us, another guy that we think can compete at a relatively early age.

Some notes and observations on these comments from Weis:

• Not surprised to see Weis say Calabrese could be seeing the field early, but am kind of surprised to see him mention Fox as a possible early playing time candidate as well.  Calabrese is very physically developed for a high school linebacker, but I figured Fox would need some work before he was ready to see the field.  Hearing Weis say he could play early is very encouraging.
• Weis also mentioned that EJ Banks could get some looks at quarterback in certain packages since we didn’t bring ina quarterback in this class.
• Sounds like Weis isn’t sure where Motta will end up since he left open the possibility for him to play both safety and outside linebacker.
• The quickness off the snap Weis talked about with Stockton is very evident in any video of him – Stockton explodes out of his stance.