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Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Latest on new Yale commit

It's didn't take long for Tony Reno to make his presence felt in recruiting circles.

There have been a couple of comments posted to my blog from parents of players who committed to Yale after being a part of the group of about 15 recruits who visited campus last week.

The father of Austin Carter got in touch with me and confirmed that he has committed to Yale.

Carter is a native of Vero Beach, Florida who was just 5-foot-10 and 162 pounds at the end of his junior season. He is now 6-1 and 222 with a 33-inch vertical leap and played linebacker/h-back last season as a postgraduate at Choate.

According to his father, Austin had 92 tackles, 9.5 sacks, 15 tackles for losses and two interceptions at linebacker and as a fullback he averaged 7 yards per carry and nearly 20 yards per catch at Choate.

Carter drew interest from pretty much every Ivy League team with Penn, Princeton and Dartmouth pushing hard. David Carter said that his son took a visit to Penn the weekend before heading to Yale and the Quakers were in the lead. However, when he visited Yale and met with Reno.

Choate has formed a nice relationship with Yale in recent years with five players in Yale's freshman and sophomore classes on the Yale roster including starting offensive tackle Roy Collins and defensive end Allen Davis.

I have reached out to the Choate coaches to check up on Carter and some of the others who have been on Yale's recruiting radar (Mattew Porter, Avery Lewis, Kyle Nolan).

I also contacted St. Igantius coach Chuck Kyle to get to update on Eric Williams, who was the top quarterback target of the previous Yale staff. Kyle said "at this point in the process, Yale University is at the top of Eric's list.  I am sure now that the coach is in place, the situation will be clarified very soon."
 
Two of Williams' brothers played football at Yale. Sean Williams is a former starter at defensive end/linebacker while Scott Williams will be a senior on the 2012 Yale team. Scott Williams came to Yale as a quarterback but was moved to defense is now listed as a linebacker.
 
As for Eric Williams, he led St. Ignatius out of Cleveland to the Ohio Division I title, passing for 297 yards including two touchdowns in a 34-13 win over Pickerington Central in the state championship game. Williams finished with 2,132 yards and 23 touchdowns. The Ohio Division I state final was televised and I was very impressed with the way Williams threw the ball. Williams is 6-3 and 190 pounds and according to his recruiting profile on rivals.com, he has been offered by Cincinnati and Eastern Michigan.
 
Williams moved to Cleveland from Oregon where he lived with his mom and other family members including his brother Sean. As a junior at Jesuit High in Portland, he threw for 1,405 yards with 13 touchdowns and five interceptions.
 
With the graduation of record-breaking QB Patrick Witt and no quarterbacks brought in during the most recent recruiting class, securing an impact quarterback is a priority. Williams would most certainly hit the criteria.

Also, I just got off the phone with one of my Yale sources who confirmed that reports of every assistant coach except Rick Flanders being let go is indeed accurate. My source did not hear of any names of potential replacements but I imagine that Reno will be moving quickly to put a new staff in place.

3 comments:

  1. Anonymous1:07 PM

    JIM,

    DID THE COACHES AT CHOATE PROVIDE ANY DEFINITIVE INFO RE MATT PORTER AND AVERY LEWIS COMMITING TO YALE?

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  2. I haven't heard back from them yet. Yesterday was a holiday and today there have been weather issues so hopefully I will hear something from them before the end of the week.

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  3. Anonymous6:27 PM

    I'm surprised that Williams doesn't have more offers at this point. The Cincinnati offer has to be taken with a grain of salt as they "offered" many QB's in this class. I know that the old staff at Illinois had an interest but I don't know about the new staff as I don't subscribe to Rivals.com

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