Thursday, July 7, 2011

the recruit: Wilfred Wahee

Name: Wilfred Wahee
Position: CB
School: Norfolk Christian
Hometown: Norfolk
Height: 5'11"
Weight: 179

24/7: 79; two stars
ESPN: 75; three stars; #102 athlete
Rivals: 5.3; two stars
Scout: two stars

Other offers: none

At the beginning of the recruiting season, the group of sought-after athletes from Norfolk Christian was thought to be a trio.  Colleges were after a fourth, though, and when Will Wahee got his offer from UVA, he became the first of his teammates to commit.

Let's get the uncomfortable part out of the way early: with near-consensus two-star ratings, being ranked #37 out of the top 40 recruits in the state by TheSabre/TSL (it's a safe bet that nobody else outside the top 30 will land at a BCS school), and the lack of offers despite the high-profile teammates, it's not totally unfair to wonder if Wahee was offered in order to help convince his besties on the team to also consider UVA.  Kwontie Moore committed a couple days later, so the theory has backup.

That said, it's also fair to wonder if scouts overlooked Wahee because of his smallish size, and assumed that his production was the result of being ignored by opponents in favor of his bigger and generally more talented teammates.  Wahee's athleticism is undeniable and would have gotten him a set of offers eventually anyway.  He had the second-best shuttle time of 4.09 (twice) at the 757 Combine and will undeniably be one of the faster players in the class.

His position in college is more about projection than high school history.  Wahee lines up in the slot on offense, except for when he lines up at tight end.  On defense he's a linebacker at NCA, and was second-team all-state in VIS D-III and racked up 105 tackles.  At that size, though, tight end and linebacker are out of the question.  You could envision him playing in the slot as a receiver, but cornerback seems likeliest, especially as per his ESPN assessment which is far more optimistic than the rest of the services.

Given the state of the depth chart in the defensive backfield, Wahee will probably (and hopefully) find plenty of competition in this recruiting class.  And that's not to mention the two outstanding prospects slated for cornerback in this year's freshman class.  He's highly athletic but in order to play cornerback (or even safety, if that's his destination) he'll need a ton of retraining.  So in an ideal world, Wahee would spend a couple seasons learning the position and emerge as a nickel back in his redshirt sophomore year or maybe the year after.  A speedy, smallish bugger like Wahee would do well covering slot receivers.  In the black hole that is the UVA depth chart - and highly depending of course on what happens to our recruiting for the rest of this year as well as next - Wahee may be forced onto the field before he's 100% ready.

1 comment:

PO13 said...

He reminds me of the some of the guys that Michigan recruited in the defensive backfield the last couple of year; guys like Talbot and Avery who were forced into playing time as true (yikes!) freshman. Hopefully that won't be the same fate for WW