recruiting board update

Two commitments in the past week means happy time!  Last Thursday, Perry Jones's younger brother Zack made the move that folks had pretty much been expecting him to make since February, if not sooner.  In fact Zack Jones was kind of the smart money to be Mike London's first commitment of 2013.  It didn't work out quite that way, but Jones did wait long enough to pick up an offer from Illinois, thus giving us someone to say "ha ha" to.  Then on Monday, big-time linebacker Micah Kiser ended his recruitment in favor of the good guys as well.

The recruiting board lives in the same place it always does.  Here are the (admittedly meager) updates:

-- Moved WR Zack Jones and LB Micah Kiser from blue to orange.  Kiser is the second defensive commit of the class, and he boasted a tremendous set of offers; Florida and Oklahoma at the top of the list, along with Penn State, Stanford, and VT.  The other defensive-side verbal, obviously, is Tim Harris, so things are moving along really well there.  The next to commit somewhere might be Wyatt Teller - also a huge recruit - and the way I read things I'd say it's about 50% us, 48% VT, or 2% somewhere else.

-- Added ATH Chavas Rawlins and OG Jack McDonald to yellow.

Kind of a slow week (other than the commitments) because we're getting to the time of year where the coaches, not the players, are on the road.  If a prospect visited a school right now he wouldn't find most of the coaches.  Some new offers will go out as our coaches evaluate players and talk to their high school coaches.  But I wouldn't expect a commitment in May unless someone has an epiphany.  UVA hosts another junior day in about a month, and their annual camp a little while after that, and those are commitment-type days.

Til then, the coaches are playing it a little slow.  Space is limited - with seven commitments we're probably about a third of the way through the class or more - and there's a core of players to shoot for that we have at least a decent chance of getting.  My wish list in that regard:

RB Taquan Mizzell
DE Wyatt Teller
LB Peter Kalambayi
CB Kirk Garner
OT Brad Henson
DT Maurice Hurst

You give me all those players and I don't care how else you fill the class.  You give me Mizzell and Teller and I'll be satisfied with the instate haul - that would give us three of the top ten in the state, and I don't care after that if Tech starts boasting about winning the state because you, I, and them too will all know it's a weak claim.  Most of the rest of the really good talent (Derrick Green, Jonathan Allen) has out-of-state stars in their eyes, and we have a good enough footing with the best of the rest (guys like Oren Burks, DaeSean Hamilton) to at least give me a warm and fuzzy about our chances within the borders.

I'd add one more to that wish list - Henry Poggi out of Gilman - but I think it's a longshot there.  The only reason I still have him in yellow is because he's a teammate of Kiser.  So many really, really big teams are after him that it's hard to expect anything there.

Also: I'm not adding this to the recruiting board, but - it's now as officially official as offical gets: Phillip Sims is transferring to Virginia.  That's the official link to the official announcement from the official UVA website, so that makes it official.  Officially.  There is neither baseball nor lacrosse this weekend - there is only the DOOM of final exams - so tomorrow is a perfect time for a profile on the latest addition.  (No, yesterday wasn't a profile.)