West Virginia Mountaineers 2012 Football Recruiting Class Update: January 19 Edition

As we roll on toward signing day, I'll try my best to keep you guys up to speed with the latest developments in recruiting. However, things often move at breakneck speed, and recruits commit and decommit with the blink of an eye, or even the flip of a coin.

Case in point: just two days ago, in the January 17 Edition of the recruiting update, I said this:

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.

What a difference a couple of days can make! To bring you guys up to speed:

• CB Da'Quan Davis - Despite rumors that he was re-opening his commitment and may visit Penn State, the cornerback from Baltimore remains committed to WVU, MetroNews reported, citing a discussion with Davis's mom and a statement from his Twitter account.
• WR Trevor Williams - That same MetroNews report states that Williams (who was a high school teammate of Davis) has de-committed and will, in fact, visit Penn State this weekend.
• DT Bret Niederreither - The big nose tackle pulled his commitment as well. I haven't seen an official statement from him, but the speculation is that either he was dissatisfied with the shakeups on the defensive staff and/or he was asked to grayshirt and decided he wants to try to play earlier.

So now, where does that leave us?

Well, let's look back at my original big board and see what's changed (number of players counting toward the 2012 class in parentheses, players who have already enrolled are in plain text, commits are in bold, de-commits are in strikethru, and additions are in italics):

QB (1) - Ford Childress, Brandon Napoleon

RB (3) - Albert Reid, JT Washington, Roshard Burney, Torry Clayton

WR (5) - Deontay McManus, Devonte Robinson, Darreall Joyner, Devonte Mathis, Danny McKinney (JC), Jordan Thompson

OL (3) - Tyler Orlosky, Tony Matteo, Will Johnson

DL (4) - Korey Harris, Noble Nwachukwu, Bret Niederreither, Imarjaye Albury, Christian Brown

LB (1) - Sam Lebbie

S (4) - Jarrod Harper, Trevor Williams, Chaz Whittaker, Nate Smith, Kimlon Dillon, Sean Walters, Karl Joseph

CB (2) - Da'Quan Davis, Nana Kyeremeh

That's a grand total of 23 players currently committed who would count toward this year's class, meaning WVU has 2 spots remaining. In addition to the four players I mentioned on Tuesday, there is some talk that DT Trae Clark (who I mentioned back in December) is now ready to commit, and would take Niederreither's place, which seems logical to me.

In all, I wouldn't get too worked up about the recent de-commitments. It seems that these decisions are the product of a few different factors, such as the defensive coaching situation and the fact that WVU is now a much hotter commodity than it was when most of these guys committed. Now that we are gaining interest from more players (and more interest from players we were already targeting), there may be some bigger fish out there, which would require us to let go of some of the players we have. It's not a fun process for the players or the coaches, but it's the nature of the business. Keep your fingers crossed for good news as we try to put the finishing touches on this class!