National Signing Day: A Brief Recap Of The West Virginia Mountaineers Class Of 2012

Annnnd breathe! Now that the inital wave of LOIs is over with, we can step back, collect our thoughts, assess the players we have in the fold and see who else is left out there that might still sign with WVU. To recap:

• There really haven't been any major surprises since last night's update, which is both a good and a bad thing.
  All 19 players we predicted signed and faxed their letters of intent, putting the wraps on a very solid class in Dana Holgorsen's first year as a head coach. The Orange Bowl win should really start to pay dividends in next year's class, when coaches and players have more time to develop relationships and build interest.
• As I predicted, OL Adam Pankey chose WVU over Pitt, rounding out a very solid OL class.
• Although neither MSN nor Scout.com lists him as official, ESPN is reporting that ATH Travares Copeland picked the Mountaineers over FIU and Rutgers. As I said yesterday, I like Copeland a lot, and I think he could fit in well at a couple different positions. Here is the video of Copeland's announcement:

So I missed on LB Deaysean Rippy, but was (unfortunately) right about WR Joel Caleb and LB Schyler Miles. I really thought we would wind up with at least one of these guys, and we ended up finishing in second with all of them. Such is life.

The SEC recruit I mentioned was actually two SEC recruits. CB Daniel Gray ended up sticking with Tennessee after visiting WVU, reaffirming his UT commit, wavering, and then signing this morning. I thought we would get either Gray or DL Eric Kinsey, who is a former Ole Miss verbal. At this point, I'm hearing all kinds of mixed signals on Kinsey---he signed with Cincinnati, he signed with WVU, and he is announcing at 7pm tonight. If we get something official, we'll post it. But at the very least, this one ain't ova.

The whole surprise recruit thing was mostly a stab in the dark. There always seem to be surprises, and I had heard some chatter about a last-minute push for someone nobody had been talking about. That may have been Tracy Howard, who I mentioned earlier today. He ended up at Miami. Teko Powell is another guy whose name was thrown around. He signed with Illinois. Sunny Odogwu was thought to be a potential grayshirt, but it looks like he will go the prep route.

At this point, there don't appear to be any more candidates out there, meaning WVU should finish with 22 in the class. Yes, it's short of the full 25 allotted, but it does address our needs and it is chock full of very very good players. It's always disappointing when you lose out on most of the 50/50 kids, but there is nothing to be ashamed of with this class.

So now that we have a handle on things, who are you most excited about? Do you have any concerns that were left unaddressed? Who did WVU really miss out on this year? Let's hear your thoughts in the comments.