There is a new name to add to the expected visitor list. Here are my notes:
Chinedu Udeogu (Georgetown Prep / North Bethesda, MD)
P5 Offers: Currently committed to Cal. Also has offers from Rutgers, Iowa State and Pitt.
Official Visits: Iowa State (January 15), Cal (January 22), and Wake Forest (January 29)
Measurables: 6’5 / 248 at Nike combine in April 2015. Ran a 5.21 40 and 30-inch vertical jump. Overall he earned a SPARQ score of 91 (a very good score).
Notes: Versatile DL could project as either a DE or DT. Cal sees him as a DE. Was somewhat under-the-radar when he committed to Cal in November. Back in July he named a top 3 of Yale, Rutgers and ECU. His brother recently committed to Iowa State as a JUCO OL. Chinedu told an Iowa State that he was very focused on studying engineering, however in previous interviews he has mentioned studying a combination of business and mathematics. Originally born in the U.S., his family moved to Nigeria for 10 years before returning to the United States. He attends a boarding school in Maryland. I believe his family lives in Chicago. Last name is pronounced “oo-DAH-goo”.
Udeogu sounds like a longshot for Wake. He’s obviously currently committed to Cal, and has made it sound like he is only taking other visits as a backup plan. His brother is openly recruiting him to Iowa State. On top of that he seems very interesting in studying engineering. However, like with anything else in recruiting you never know. He sounds like an academically-focused kid that has mentioned an interest in studying business. Just the fact that he’s visiting is an indication that he has some level of interest in Wake.
Some other notes:
Greg Dortch received an in-home visit from Coach Clawson and Coach Tabacca last night. Coach Clawson is making the rounds visiting several commits (for example, he had in-homes with Lukas Masterson and Je’Vionte Nash on Monday), but the Dortch visit is interesting given that he’s agreed to visit Maryland. There was also news yesterday that Maryland has offered Dortch’s teammate K’Von Wallace. Wallace is considering cancelling a previously scheduled visit to Pitt on January 29 so that he can visit Maryland with Dortch.
Andrew Armstrong committed to Syracuse last night. No word on whether he still plans to make other visits.
Arkeem Byrd had some positive comments about his Wake visit in his interview with Wake Rivals
(here)and in this brief article
(here). Byrd plans two more visits, but hasn’t decided which schools will get those visits. The second article indicates that a Clemson visit on 1/29 is still a possibility. Byrd is a backup plan at DB for Clemson. Byrd is an interesting first test to see what influence the new facilities will have on recruiting. He seems wide-open, but landing him will require clean wins over a handful of other P5 schools. This is exactly the type of recruiting battle that you hope the new facilities will help Wake win.
Tyler Watson picked up an offer from Indiana yesterday.
The day after
Taleni Suhren tweeted that he was firm in his commitment to Wake a Vandy writer wrote (without mentioning Suhren’s tweet) that the Vandy staff had decided to head in a different direction because Suhren wasn’t a fit for what they wanted to do on the offensive line (yeah, right). Note: If I knew how to embed the Jennifer Lawrence “oh, okay” GIF I would have done it here.
Some non-Wake notes as well:
Jim Harbaugh made news again when he attended a high school class with 4-star DT Boss Tagaloa as part of his in-home visit.
I know that every year it seems like there is one team that gets hit especially hard by decommitments, but the meltdown this year at Maryland has been particularly spectacular. They made a lot of waves early in the recruiting season getting wins from highly-ranked in-state recruits by really emphasizing a “stay-at-home’ movement that was spearheaded by highly rated QB Dwayne Haskins. Now most of those recruits have moved on, including Haskins himself. Maryland is sitting with only 10 commits right now, with room to add as many as 17 more.
Speaking of “stay-at-home” movements, I’ve seen a lot of hashtags on Twitter and the new Rutgers staff using #FenceTheGarden has to be one of the worst.
Those of you who follow this thread know that I am envious of how Duke football, and especially assistant coach Derek Jones, use social media to define their program’s brand and market the program to recruits. For that reason I wasn’t surprised to see that Jones was invited to speak on that topic at the AFCA National Convention. I also read that 247 listed Jones as the primary recruiter for 10 of Duke’s commits in the 2016 class.