Go Joe Bruin Predicts UCLA’s Signing Day Finish To The 2015 Recruiting Class
Jan 2, 2015; San Antonio, TX, USA; UCLA Bruins head coach Jim L. Mora looks onto the field during the first half of the 2015 Alamo Bowl against the Kansas State Wildcats at Alamodome. Mandatory Credit: Soobum Im-USA TODAY Sports
With less than 24 hours to go until National Signing Day madness ensues, we can finally see the finish line to a dramatic and eventful 2015 recruiting cycle. Even though the end is near, there still is a lot of a uncertainty as to what the final composition of UCLA’s class will be.
There are seven uncommitted recruits still seriously considering UCLA and, based on 24/7 Sports’s nuclear bomb of a UCLA recruiting update yesterday, the Bruins seem to have a legitimate chance of landing all seven. Now, because this is recruiting and these are teenagers, decisions can change on a whim and the odds of UCLA ultimately landing all seven seem low. But Jim Mora and his staff have done fantastic work to get UCLA this far with so many high-end recruits and, with a little nudge over the finish line, a pretty good recruiting class (currently ranked 16th in 24/7 Sports’s Composite Team Rankings) still has a solid chance become a great one.
Without further ado, here are our predictions heading into Signing Day (ordered by time of announcement and all denoted star rankings per the 24/7 Composite Index):
PREDICTIONS
UCLA Bruins
Chris Clark (Avon, CT/Avon Old Farms), 4* TE, 5:35 a.m. PST- ESPNU
Fittingly, the first commitment of National Signing Day will be made by the mercurial Chris Clark, a young man who has probably had a more topsy-turvy recruiting process than any of UCLA’s remaining recruits. Clark is already similar to UCLA’s senior WR Jordan Payton in one way: he has committed to and decommitted from multiple schools during his time as a recruit. UCLA is hoping Clark will emulate Payton in two other ways: by choosing UCLA on Signing Day and developing into a reliable, big-bodied weapon for the Bruin offense.
The Bruins are locked in a see-saw battle with Michigan, the school to whom Clark was previously committed prior to the firing of Brady Hoke, to land Clark. The buzz coming out of the weekend was that Clark was leaning to UCLA, but in a recruitment that has shown itself to be highly volatile, things can easily change in an instant.
A key factor could be Clark’s family: although Ann Arbor, MI isn’t exactly next door to Clark’s family home in New Jersey, it is a far more accessible destination for the Clarks than Westwood would be. This is a big reason why it is believed that Clark’s parents would prefer Chris to land at Michigan. However, the Clark family joined Chris on his UCLA official visit and reportedly enjoyed the visit quite a lot, so it would stand to reason Chris would have his parents’ blessing should he choose to venture across the country to become a Bruin.
The pick: UCLA
Confidence: Moderate
Soso Jamabo (Plano, TX/Plano West), 5* RB, 6:20 a.m. PST- ESPNU
The announcement for Soso Jamabo’s college destination has recently gone from a nail-biter for Bruin fans to a likely celebration for Bruin fans. A UCLA-Texas battle for much of January, Jamabo’s recruitment was given clarity yesterday as news broke that Jamabo had informed Texas he would choosing UCLA running backs coach Kennedy Polamalu and the Bruins on Signing Day. Jamabo did his best to try to maintain a shred of intrigue by seemingly repudiating the reports:
However, closer reading shows that Jamabo seems to be calling out the source of the leak to reporters rather than the information itself. All indications are the elite playmaker from the Dallas suburbs should be announcing for UCLA tomorrow.
The pick: UCLA
Confidence: Very High
Josh Wariboko (Oklahoma City, OK/Casady), 4* OG, 8:05 a.m. PST- ESPNU
As we’ve noted repeatedly in recruiting pieces over the last few months, the big guard from Oklahoma (and the state’s top overall recruit) is a long-time UCLA lean. Wariboko, the son of two OU graduates, was committed to Oklahoma very early in the recruiting process, but began to establish a close bond with UCLA and offensive line coach Adrian Klemm not very long after his decommitment from the Sooners. However, the hometown school has lingered in this recruitment even after the decommitment and if there’s any school that stands a chance to steal Wariboko from UCLA, it’s Oklahoma.
Normally, it would be asinine to predict UCLA would win a battle for an out-of-state recruit when its competition is the local blueblood, especially when the recruit was basically born in the colors of that local school. It still might prove to be asinine. However, such is the strength of the bond between Klemm and Wariboko and the affinity Wariboko has long held for UCLA that we’re going to do what would normally be totally inadvisable.
The pick: UCLA
Confidence: High
Roquan Smith (Montezuma, GA/Macon County), 4* LB, 8:20 a.m. PST- ESPNU
In the Defensive Big Board piece last week, we were very dismissive of UCLA’s chances with Smith. We noted that UCLA was the first school to offer Smith (two whole years ago) and he has maintained high interest in the Bruins throughout the recruiting process, mainly due to his extremely close bond with UCLA defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich.
But Smith has long been rumored to be a lean to local power Georgia and it made sense that a Southern kid from out in the country would choose to play closer to home than traverse the country to Westwood, CA. So, imagine our utter shock when 24/7 Sports reported on Monday that Smith had “silently” committed to UCLA on his official visit and that the Bruins were the clear favorites to land Smith on Signing Day!
Landing the commitment of Smith, a consensus 4* recruit who is rated the #1 inside linebacker in the country by Scout.com, would be a monumental coup for UCLA and would reverberate across the recruiting landscape. One interesting thing to note: Smith’s decision could have an impact on 3* inside LB Victor Alexander (Jacksonville, FL/Trinity Christian), the long-time UCLA commit who flipped to Georgia Tech on an official visit over the weekend but later said he was recommitted to UCLA. It will be interesting to see what Alexander decides to do on Signing Day, especially given the possibility that Smith could be coming into UCLA at the same position.
We’ve so far predicted that three elite out-of-region kids would choose UCLA. We’re not going to be so adventurous as to pick a fourth with Smith, simply because the odds say UCLA has to slip up with at least one of these kids and the post-official visit buzz might have worn off enough since Sunday night that Smith would be more susceptible to the inevitable crush of local pressure to stay close to home. But Smith choosing UCLA would not shock us either and would give Ulbrich the kind of feather in his cap that most recruiters can only dream of.
The pick: Georgia
Confidence: Low
Cordell Broadus (Las Vegas, NV/Bishop Gorman), 4* WR, 11:35 a.m. PST- ESPNU
Broadus’s recruitment has been fascinating to say the least. For a supposedly blue-chip recruit, many of his favored schools have been morbidly afraid to go all-in with him, including UCLA and USC. His father, the infamous Trojan fan (and occasional legendary rap artist) Snoop Dogg, wants his son at USC but the Trojans flat-out have not recruited Broadus since the summer. UCLA backed off Broadus for a while as well, as he struggled through a middling senior season at Bishop Gorman. The Bruins had expected to land 4* WR Carlos Strickland (Dallas, TX/Skyline), but the 6’5″ Texan’s somewhat surprising choice to commit to Cal opened up a potential scholarship for a larger receiver like Broadus.
Broadus is extremely hard to read. He had a chance to officially visit UCLA this past weekend, but went to go see his dad perform at a Super Bowl party in Phoenix instead and took an unofficial visit to Arizona State while down in that area. But the buzz around Broadus seems to indicate that UCLA will be the pick, despite him spurning a chance to visit UCLA’s campus and coaches. We have no idea what to make of this and the prediction we’re making is merely for the sake of making a prediction. It has the informative value of flipping a coin.
The pick: UCLA
Confidence: Very Low
Joseph Wicker (Long Beach, CA/Poly), 4* DT, 1:10 p.m. PST- ESPNU
Wicker, who Go Joe Bruin identified not too long ago as the most important remaining uncommitted recruit UCLA could still grab, took his long-awaited official visit to Westwood this past weekend and reportedly (and not surprisingly) loved it. The hope is that the visit was enough to show Wicker why he should stay home and spurn Arizona State, who has put up a heck of a fight in this recruitment.
It wouldn’t blow us away if Wicker chose to become a Sun Devil, because he has made noises in the past about wanting to go away from home for college. Indeed, he was a one-time commit to Steve Sarkisian and Washington as a high school junior.
But that last point brings up an interesting element to Wicker’s recruitment that could be a major reason that he chooses UCLA, besides the obvious appeal of playing for a major local school: when Sarkisian left Washington to go to USC, he didn’t subsequently offer Wicker a scholarship to be a Trojan. We’ve heard that Wicker has taken this as a major slight and that one reason he likes UCLA is the opportunity it gives him to directly punish Sarkisian and his staff for disrespecting him. A talented kid with that kind of motivation to beat a USC head coach needs to be a Bruin.
The pick: UCLA
Confidence: High
Nathan Meadors (San Bernardino, CA/San Gorgonio), 3* S, some time in the 1:00 p.m. PST hour- Fox Sports Prime Ticket
We’ll conclude our predictions with a spoiler: long-time Bruin lean Meadors took his official visit to UCLA last weekend and (stop us if you’ve heard this before) loved it. He’s going to be a Bruin unless the coaches tell him otherwise. They won’t.
The pick: UCLA
Confidence: Very High
SUMMARY
Our predictions have UCLA closing out its recruiting class with one 5-star recruit, four 4-star recruits, and one 3-star recruit. According to 24/7 Sports’s Class Calculator feature, adding the potential commitments of those recruits to UCLA’s already-existing class would place the Bruins firmly in the Top 10 and potentially in the Top 5 of the national team recruiting rankings. That would be an outstanding finish and cap an outstanding 2015 recruiting class overall should it all come to fruition on Wednesday.
See you all bright and early in the morning for the beginning of the insanity that is National Signing Day!