BOOM! UCLA Stuns The College Football World, Lands 4-Star WR Ryan Newsome

Jan 2, 2015; San Antonio, TX, USA; UCLA Bruins running back Paul Perkins (24) runs the ball for a touchdown during the second half of the 2015 Alamo Bowl against the Kansas State Wildcats at Alamodome. The Bruins won 40-35. Mandatory Credit: Soobum Im-USA TODAY Sports

In an absolutely stunning development Friday afternoon, 4-star wide receiver Ryan Newsome (Aledo, TX/Aledo) spurned local power and long-time favorite Texas, and instead chose to commit to UCLA in a ceremony held at his high school.

Newsome has been a high-priority target for UCLA since the 2015 recruiting cycle began in earnest last February, with UCLA coach Jim Mora personally taking charge of Newsome’s recruitment. Why? Because despite his slight frame (5’9″, 160 lbs), Newsome’s game is all about something that UCLA’s receiver corps currently lacks and desperately needs: speed, speed, speed.

Newsome provides UCLA with attributes it has been missing since the time of Maurice Jones-Drew from its skill position players: the ability to make defenders miss in the open field and create big plays from nothing.

In an

interview last night with Bruin Sports Report’s Edward Lewis

(free link), Newsome talked about why, after being torn between his final two schools for so long, he ultimately chose UCLA: “The relationship I have with those coaches went far beyond the relationship I had with any others,” Newsome said of the Bruins. “They always made me a priority in their class and they told me they were going to make me a priority ever since they offered me in my junior year. So it meant a lot to me for them to stick to it. They never wavered one bit and that really meant a lot to me.”

UCLA Bruins

Newsome also told Lewis that “Coach Mora told me I wasn’t redshirting even if I wanted to redshirt” and that “I feel like they really need me there and he’s going to make it a point to get the rock in my hands. They haven’t had a guy like me since he’s been there, so it’s really important for him to grab me and he did, so I’m going to make some stuff happen.”

To provide further context to the surprise factor of Newsome’s choice of UCLA, Go Joe Bruin recently published its list of UCLA’s top 5 remaining recruits. Newsome was not on that list, but only because we had no reason to believe UCLA realistically had a chance to land Newsome based on the consensus sentiment coming from the recruiting experts in Texas. Indeed, 24/7 Sports’s Crystall Ball had 90% of recruiting experts predicting that Newsome would pick Texas and only 2% projecting him to UCLA!

As a result, we left him off that list, but had we known Newsome was truly in play, we would have included him at #2 on that list behind 4-star DT Joseph Wicker but ahead of 5-star RB Soso Jamabo.

Needless to say, for all the reasons described above, this is a paradigm-shifting commitment for UCLA that will not only allow its offense to take a leap by adding a new and unique weapon to the arsenal, but also will provide the Bruins with a totally unexpected jolt of momentum heading into the stretch run to Signing Day.

Welcome to Westwood, Ryan!