West Virginia Mountaineers 2012 Football Recruiting Class Update: January 17 Edition

About a month ago, we took an early look at WVU's football recruiting class verbals and named a few guys to look out for in the meantime. As National Signing Day is only a few weeks away now, it's time for another update.

Since that time, five commits enrolled in classes in Morgantown with plans to participate in spring practice and get a jump on the competition: QB Ford Childress, DT Imarjaye Albury, S Karl Joseph, WR Jordan Thompson, and S Sean Walters. All five players will count back toward last year's class in terms of scholarship limits. These guys will almost certainly be more prepared to compete for playing time come fall camp. You can read more about them in this MSNSportsnet update.

Just this week, WVU has received verbal commitments from a couple of Scout.com three-star players, CB Nana Kyeremeh from Thomas Worthington (OH) and RB Torry Clayton of South Dade (FL). Kyeremeh fills a need at corner, and looks to be nice pickup. Not to discredit Clayton, but he appears to be a replacement for Albert Reid, who switched his commitment to Vanderbilt, and after David Smith chose Oklahoma over WVU today. Nonetheless, Clayton averaged 6.7 YPC and had 20 TD as a junior last year in Florida, so he's not exactly a slouch. With these two, WVU should be full at both RB and CB for this class.

The Mountaineers also received a verbal from DT Christian Brown from Bridgeton (NJ) back in December. At 6'2, 290 lbs, Brown is the type of wide body that WVU needs to anchor the center of its defensive line. Given the commits of Brown, Albury, and Bret Niederreither, the future looks bright in the center of the line.

Finally, TE Will Johnson gave his verbal back in December. Johnson had a sloo of offers from really good schools, so he's clearly a solid pickup. I'm just not sure if given his 6'7, 245 lbs, frame he is going to be a pass-catching TE or convert to OT. My guess is OT.

After the jump, we'll take a look at the Mountaineers' remaining spots, needs, and targets.

Aside from the five already enrolled, WVU currently shows 24 commits. That number, of course, could change if anyone else defects, fails to qualify, or chooses to grayshirt. From what I'm hearing, the next couple weeks could get really interesting on the recruiting front. I'm not exactly sure what that means, but for anything too crazy to transpire, there would have to be at least a couple current commits who don't make it in this year's class.

• LB Garret Hope from Texas is one potential target. He is scheduled to visit this weekend, and a commit from him would help add to our class of linebackers.
• OL Mark Glowinski visited recently and seemed to come away impressed. He will choose between WVU, UConn, and Kansas State. As JUCO, he would have 3 years to play 2, and he defintiely has the potential to contribute early on our O-Line.
• WR Joel Caleb, rumored to be a heavy Virginia Tech lean, is also supposed to visit this weekend. To me, he's an intriguing guy because he's talented enough that we wouldn't turn him away despite a nice haul of WRs to date. Would someone else lose their scholly if Caleb wanted to commit? Hmm...
• LB Deaysean Rippy still has WVU on his list, but visited Arizona this past weekend and will trip to UCLA this coming weekend. Our chances of landing him aren't excellent, but I've been surprised before. He'd be a nice late pickup as well.

As always, you just never know what kind of surprises kids have in store for National Signing Day. As I said above, folks who know more than I do say things are about to get interesting. I certainly hope so, because this time of year is wayyy more fun when kids are switching to WVU. On the other hand, the Mountaineers have an excellent class on paper as it is. Maybe we don't have the headliners like Geno Smith and Tavon Austin, but we certainly have a ton of quality players, which is exactly what we need. Stay tuned for more updates!