An Introduction To The UCLA Football Recruits of 2016: Slot Receivers
Sep 25, 2014; Tempe, AZ, USA; UCLA Bruins wide receiver Mossi Johnson (14) and wide receiver Devin Fuller (7) against the Arizona State Sun Devils at Sun Devil Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports
Coming off the 2015 recruiting cycle in which UCLA only signed one wide receiver (4-star Cordell Broadus), the Bruins are in need of a talent infusion at the position in the 2016 class. As luck would have it though, UCLA’s highest-priority offensive position of need in the 2016 class happens to be the one at which the talent pool in California is more stocked than ever. 24/7 Sports’s Composite Rating Index has assigned 4-star ratings or higher to an incredible 14 recruits in the state of California’s class of 2016 who could project as wide receivers at the next level, and UCLA is poised to grab its share of those recruits.
UCLA’s wide receiver recruiting can be broken down into two sub-categories: slot receivers and outside receivers. In this piece, we will be focusing on the slot receivers.
UCLA Bruins
3-star Demetric Felton (Temecula, CA/Great Oak)
The uncommitted offerees (per Bruin Sports Report):
4-star Damian Alloway (Fontana, CA/Summit)
4-star Jack Jones (Long Beach, CA/Poly)
4-star Melquise Stovall (Lancaster, CA/Paraclete)
The current realistic targets:
At slot receiver, the Bruins already have Demetric Felton in the fold and are targeting Damian Alloway, the #1 all-purpose back in the country according to 24/7 Sports, to come in alongside Felton at a position that UCLA has desperately tried to recruit in all three recruiting classes during Jim Mora‘s time in Westwood, but somehow been unable to fill with even a single recruit who came in earmarked as a slot receiver. The Bruins have adjusted by converting quarterback Devin Fuller and cornerback Mossi Johnson into slot receivers, but with such an abundance of local riches at the position in 2016, wide receivers coach Eric Yarber can’t help but think this is the year in which he finally stocks the “F” receiver position with some serious talent.
Felton and Alloway are actually quite complementary to each other, with Felton projecting as the jitterbug who can make defenders miss in the open field on short and intermediate routes and Alloway projecting as a deep threat who has legitimate track-star speed and can take the top off a defense in addition to having similar abilities to Felton in the open field.
Alloway was scheduled to make a commitment at the same event where his Team Ground Zero 7-on-7 teammates Lokeni Toailoa and the aforementioned Felton committed to UCLA, but Alloway held off because he wasn’t ready to pick between California and UCLA. 100% of the experts in 24/7’s Crystal Ball have Alloway pegged to ultimately choose UCLA, but this is by no means a foregone conclusion and the Bruins will have to continue to recruit Alloway hard if they want to lock him up and finish off their 2016 slot receiver recruiting with a bang by snaring him from the clutches of the Golden Bears.
With all that said about Felton and Alloway, though, there is one slot receiver recruit who stands out above all as a true bellwether of UCLA’s recruiting class: Jack Jones of Long Beach Poly. Jones combines the best of Felton and Alloway into one souped-up, game-breaking machine and the Bruins have known that ever since Jones came to UCLA’s 2014 summer camp last June and blew the coaches away to such a degree that they immediately offered him, becoming the first school to do so, and consequently made him one of the top three recruits on their overall board in the class of 2016.
Jones is such a dynamic talent that, in addition to being far-and-away the best slot receiver prospect in the West, he’s also an equally elite cornerback prospect. The Bruins are recruiting Jones as an athlete and he is one of those prospects from whom they would just be happy to get a signed letter of intent and let the chips fall where they may regarding his future position, knowing he’s an all-conference level talent on both sides of the ball.
However, as much as UCLA’s coaches salivate over the prospect of potentially signing Jones up to become a Bruin, they’re understandably wary about one potentially determinative fact: Jones fits into the Juju Smith/Iman Marshall mold of elite Long Beach Poly recruits who grew up die-hard USC fans and is considered a lock by most recruiting observers to become a Trojan.
Jones has given Bruin fans more hope than they had with Smith and Marshall by recently citing a list of his current top three schools ($) that included the Bruins but surprisingly didn’t include the Trojans. Indeed, 24/7 Sports currently lists Jones’s top three as UCLA, Notre Dame, and Oklahoma (per Jones’s player profile). But it would be prudent to remain hopeful of the best, but expectant of the worst in Jones’s recruitment, given its context and the popular sentiment that USC can get back into Jones’s good graces whenever it wants to and ultimately come from behind to land him come 2016’s National Signing Day next February.
Still, UCLA is very happy to have Felton in the fold and would be thrilled to bring in Alloway alongside him in the slot. If they could add Jones, though, the impact simply be monstrous. Not only would UCLA be landing a truly special two-way talent who could have an Adoree’ Jackson-like impact on the roster, but it would also be breaking the long-time hex it has had in recruiting against USC at the talent mine that is Long Beach Poly and that could be a development that would seriously reverberate within Southern California recruiting circles should it come to pass.
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