FEBRUARY 11, 2010 ISSUE
Linemen Head “Elite” Signing Day Class for Mountaineers
Skilled position players are hard to find on the list of ASU’s signees for the fall football campaign.
With so many of those types of players coming back, that wasn’t where the coaching staff saw a big need.
Instead, coaches were able to get “big.”
Of the 16 signees, including 15 who inked their letters of intent on February 3 on National Signing Day, 12 are linemen or tight ends.
And many of those don’t fit the usual mold of smaller and quicker. Many of these incoming players are taller than 6-foot-4 and weigh more than 275 pounds.
“We've always tried to take kids that we thought could run well, that's always been the major focus,” coach Jerry Moore said. “It just so happened this year, particularly during the season when we had a lot of nice visits, that there were a lot of those guys out there who were taller, bigger kids than there have been in the past.”
Five incoming freshmen are listed as offensive linemen, four are defensive linemen and three are tight ends. With five linemen graduating this year, the hope was to bring in players that can make an immediate impact.
Having that in mind, Moore and his staff signed four junior college players—tight end Antonio Danzy and defensive linemen Chris Aiken, Derrick Shuemake and Dan Wylie—from Georgia Military School.
Aiken, who is an Iraq war veteran, signed his national letter of intent early and is already enrolled and taking classes at ASU.
“We don't necessarily want to red shirt them,” Moore said. “You go after the junior college guys because of immediate needs.”
Along with all those linemen, the Mountaineers signed two quarterbacks—Elijah Adamiak and Kalik Barnes—as they look at fill the void left by the graduation of Armanti Edwards.
There are two quarterbacks already in school—red shirt freshman Jamal Jackson and DeAndre Presley, who spent time last year as a wide receiver—who will be fighting for the coveted No. 1 spot during spring practice. Moore said that Tavaris Cadet, who backed up Edwards last season, will be moved to receiver for the coming season.
In the past, ASU has signed quarterbacks who are athletic enough to play other positions and that could be the same with Adamiak and Barnes.
“They're both good quarterbacks and they're both good athletes,” Moore said. “They could play corner, they could play receiver. I don't think we lose anything in either one of them if they don't turn out to be a quarterback.”
Moore was happy with the group of recruits who signed with the Mountaineers.
“This is an elite class,” he said.
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