the recruit: Laroy Reynolds

Unrelated thought: Now that I think about it, the guy in the ACC scheduling department that gave Maryland a home game on Inauguration Day oughta be smacked upside the head. I'm glad I'm not the poor fool whose job it was to find the basketball team a hotel in the DC area (or probably Baltimore) last night.

Name: Laroy Reynolds
Position: S/WR
Hometown: Norfolk
School: Maury
Height: 6'1"
Weight: 207

ESPN: 76, #113 safety
Rivals: 5.6, three stars, #48 safety
Scout: two stars, #204 WR

Worth re-linking is this fluff article on Reynolds from the VP from last October. There are thousands of football players in the Hampton Roads area and any number of standouts on excellent teams, and only so much room on the pages for fluff articles, so I think it's worth something that Reynolds got one. Oh, and he's a future E-schooler - whooff. Most E-schoolers I knew didn't know much about the Grounds except for how to get from the E-school to Newcomb and back. So uh, good luck with that.

Reynolds was a surprise commit (he visited in July and was like, yup, this is it), the last of the preseason ones, and one of a number that Bob Pruett has pulled for us out of the Hampton Roads area. He played both offense and defense for Maury, and nobody's exactly sure which position he'll play in college. The recruiting services and offer list (NC State, Syracuse, UConn) paint a picture of a guy who's pretty good at both but not exceptional at either.

Plus, either way he'll be in the middle of a logjam in this class - we have like five safeties (unless Javanti Sparrow doesn't qualify, in which case four) and four receivers including Reynolds. Reynolds kind of falls out of the discussion at safety (Corey Lillard is rated higher and Perry Jones had a phenomenal senior season) and also at WR (Tim Smith is rated higher and had a phenomenal senior season, and personally I'm a big fan of Kevin Royal.)

This stacked deck seems to mean a couple of things: one, a redshirt year, and/or two, special teams. Reynolds is an excellent depth guy for this class, and excellent depth guys have a way of making their presence known on kick/punt coverage. See: McLeod, Rodney. If Reynolds is going to break into the depth chart, this seems the most likely path.