With 22 of the spaces in the 2016 football recruiting class filled and only one more weekend left to host official visitors, UCLA football will be looking to take a select few more players to finish its class off and has a few high-profile targets it is focusing on in the final sprint to National Signing Day on February 3.
QUARTERBACK
With the 47th President of the United States Josh Rosen already starting (and excelling) as a true freshman quarterback in 2015 and given the modern recruiting environment in which top quarterback recruits step on campus expecting to play not too long after arriving, the Bruins were never likely to grab an elite QB prospect in the 2016 class.
Most kids just wouldn’t want to bide their time sitting behind Rosen for (at least) two years, even if that might be the best recipe for developing most quarterbacks.
As a result, UCLA went for raw upside with the first committed QB in the class, as it landed 3-star dual-threat QB Matt Lynch (Broomfield, CO/Legacy). Lynch has intriguing physical tools, with a 6-foot-5 frame, solid arm strength, and really nice speed in the open field.
However, Lynch is the definition of a project: his throwing mechanics are in need of an almost complete overhaul and his quarterbacking instincts need to be properly calibrated. Right now, Lynch is an athlete playing quarterback rather than a quarterback with athleticism, and that will have to evolve in order for UCLA’s gamble on his physical talent to pay off. He’s about as boom-or-bust as it gets, with a floor that’s FCS-level and an upside that’s All-Pac-12 level.
As we mentioned in the first 2016 Offensive Big Board, UCLA was also very interested in supplementing its essentially barren quarterback depth chart (which currently consists of Rosen as the only scholarship quarterback on the roster) with one more quarterback in this class on top of Lynch. That prayer was answered not too long after that piece was published.
UCLA’s top QB target from last spring, 4-star Devon Modster (Rancho Santa Margarita, CA/Tesoro), decommitted from Arizona in late December and once that happened, UCLA got in contact with him about taking an official visit and potentially joining the Bruin recruiting class. Modster took that official visit two weeks ago and a day after returning to Orange County from Westwood, he announced his commitment to UCLA.
As far as his game is concerned, Modster has good arm strength, throws a tight and catchable ball, and really seems to be able to put the ball in small windows when he has protection and can set his feet. His highlight tape makes it clear that he’s a natural runner as well.
In his senior season, as an encouraging sign of his improvement from year-to-year, he showed much better touch on his deep passes. Like most young quarterbacks, he has work to do when it comes to the mental side of the game, but Modster certainly has the potential to be a top-level Pac-12 quarterback if things go right with his development.
In addition to Lynch and Modster, the Bruins have promised 4-star commit Dymond Lee (West Hills, CA/Chaminade) that the first position he’ll get to try once on campus will be his preferred one of quarterback, but Lee is likely to end up at wide receiver down the road. He’s absolutely electric in the open field, has good hands, and has remarkable body control and concentration when elevating for jump balls.
One of Lynch or Modster will immediately be in the three-deep at QB the moment he steps on campus, which is a scary proposition for a true freshman with a lot of development still ahead of him.
Obviously, for numerous reasons, UCLA would prefer to keep Rosen upright for the next two seasons; one of those reasons is to give Lynch and Modster a proper chance to undergo their hopefully considerable development outside the spotlight before one of them gets his shot to start after what should be a wide-open QB battle leading up to the 2018 season.
Next: Running Backs
RUNNING BACKS
Coming off a 2015 recruiting class in which the Bruins reeled in two top running backs, Soso Jamabo and Bolu Olorunfunmi, running back was never going to be a huge need in the 2016 class for UCLA.
Fortuitously, it also happens to be a near-barren year for running back talent in Southern California.
After missing on 4-star scatback Sean McGrew (Bellflower, CA/St. John Bosco), the Bruins grabbed 3-star situational power back/fullback Jalen Starks (Encino, CA/Crespi) in the late spring.
And in a surprise breaking development, after essentially ignoring other 2016 running back recruits and focusing on other positions since Starks’s commitment, UCLA has offered a scholarship within the last 24 hours to recent Stanford decommit and 3-star running back Brandon Stephens (Plano, TX/Plano). The Bruin coaches have also convinced him to take an official visit to UCLA this upcoming weekend, which is the final weekend available to host visitors before National Signing Day on February 3.
Grabbing Stephens — who garnered offers from powers like Alabama, Oklahoma, Ohio State, and Texas before his initial commitment to Stanford — would be an unexpected and pleasant surprise for the Bruins. Although he lacks elite speed, Stephens has a playing style that is spookily reminiscent of departed UCLA running back Paul Perkins. Stephens relies on his balance, cutting ability, patience, and vision to consistently churn out positive yardage.
Given how productive and beloved Perkins was as a Bruin, it is no wonder that new offensive coordinator Kennedy Polamalu and his offensive staff jumped at the chance to go after such a similar style of player in Stephens when Stephens decommitted from Stanford last Thursday, January 21.
Having been committed to the Cardinal through late January, Stephens has taken no other official visits and thus, his impending trip to Westwood would be the only trip he has on his mind when making his decision next week. A lot of dominoes seem to be falling in UCLA’s favor as it attempts to land its second star running back from Plano, Texas in as many years.
UCLA is trending as the ascendant favorite to grab Stephens’s commitment, per the 24/7 Sports Crystal Ball.
Next: Wide Receivers
WIDE RECEIVERS
Coming off the 2015 recruiting cycle from which UCLA only signed one wide receiver currently on the roster (Stephen Johnson), the Bruins are in need of a talent infusion at the position in the 2016 class. And with the Bruins being able to sell the allure of catching passes from Josh Rosen for the next two years, UCLA is poised to restock the wide receiver position in a big way through its efforts in this recruiting cycle.
The jewel of UCLA’s committed receiver corps is 4-star Theo Howard (Westlake Village, CA/Westlake), who is the highest-rated receiver to sign with UCLA in the Jim Mora era. With his absolutely blazing speed (running a 4.38 40-yard-dash in the spring at the Oakland Nike Camp), Howard has elicited comparisons to former USC standout Marqise Lee, but in terms of skills, style, and body type, Howard compares very well to former Colorado star (and brief UCLA enrollee) Paul Richardson. If Howard is half as good at UCLA as Richardson was at CU, then some fireworks are on the way at the Rose Bowl.
In addition to Howard and the aforementioned Dymond Lee, UCLA has commitments from 4-star wide receiver Darian Owens (Fresno, CA/Clovis West) and 3-star Demetric Felton (Temecula, CA/Great Oak).
Owens is an athletic, physical target on the outside, while Felton is a true home-run threat from the slot and has had one of the most impressive senior seasons of any recruit in the state.
UCLA Bruins
With less than two months remaining until Signing Day, the Bruins still have three more wide receivers they’re targeting and could possibly land all three when all is said and done. The first is 4-star athlete Aaron Hansford (St. John’s College/Washington, DC). Hansford shot up the national recruiting rankings after a tremendous senior season playing both wide receiver and linebacker, but his best position of the two in college is probably linebacker, where he wowed the coaches and observers of the Under Armour All-American Game a couple weeks ago with his instincts and athleticism.
However, interestingly, UCLA is recruiting him as a wide receiver and it’s the fact that the Bruin coaches were the first staff willing to let him play his preferred position of wide receiver in college that has kept UCLA so high on his list. To use a sentence regular readers of Go Joe Bruin will be very familiar with, Hansford is one of those players who UCLA will be happy to get on campus first and ask questions about the position he’ll end up playing later.
The Bruins have been selling the 6-foot-2, 210-pound Hansford on being the next Thomas Duarte at UCLA and the pitch has been working, as Hansford has cut his list down to a final two of UCLA and Texas A&M.
The Aggies got a bit of a break when Hansford had to extend his official visit to College Station last weekend because the massive blizzard on the East Coast left him unable to fly home after the allotted 48 hours of the visit were up. However, UCLA made a very positive impression on Hansford when he officially visited Westwood a couple weeks ago and there seems to be a lot of good buzz around UCLA and Hansford at the moment.
UCLA is also heavily recruiting 4-star slot receiver Damian Alloway (Fontana, CA/Summit). An absolute speedster with increasingly impressive toughness, Alloway has had a topsy-turvy recruitment that has fleetingly drawn him toward and away from UCLA, but the Bruins remain the local favorite to land Alloway and will likely secure his commitment over Notre Dame once he wraps up his official visit to UCLA this upcoming weekend.
Finally, the Bruins have been consistently in the mix for 3-star Audie Omotosho (Plano, TX/Plano East), an under-the-radar recruit with all the physical tools to absolutely thrive at the next level who has been a favorite of UCLA’s coaching staff for a while in this recruiting cycle.
Omotosho released his top four yesterday via his Twitter account, and it included the news that UCLA had both made his last cut and would be receiving his final official visit this upcoming weekend of January 29-31.
The Bruins will have to hold off hard-charging local favorite TCU in order to land Omotosho, but having the last crack at him before Signing Day will certainly be a boon to that effort.
Next: Tight Ends
TIGHT ENDS
With the impending presumed shift to a more pro-style oriented offense under Kennedy Polamalu, the Bruins have a need to fill out the tight end depth chart.
To that end, the Bruins went some way towards filling that need when they brought in 3-star tight end Jordan Wilson (Nashville, TN/Montgomery Bell Academy), who is an imposing figure at 6-feet-5-inches and 215-pounds and possesses a mind-boggling 7-foot wingspan. No prizes for guessing which one is Wilson in this picture:
Wilson projects to be a dangerous pass-catching weapon who has the frame to grow into an imposing blocker as well after enough time in UCLA’s strength program.
After the loss of 3-star Thaddeus Moss (Charlotte, NC/Mallard Creek) to NC State, the Bruins still have a remaining tight end recruit on the board who they would absolutely love to bring in alongside Wilson: 4-star Devin Asiasi (Concord, CA/De La Salle).
Tipping the scales at over 270 pounds, Asiasi is an absolute giant whose body seems to project better on the defensive line in college, but whose tight end skills have wowed observers who are shocked that a player his size can run and catch the way that he does. It also goes without saying that Asiasi is a devastating blocker from the tight end position as well.
Asiasi visited UCLA a month ago with close friend and UCLA lean Boss Tagaloa, a 4-star nose tackle who is Asiasi’s teammate at powerhouse high school program De La Salle. The Bruins are able and willing to sell Asiasi on their need for a large, in-line tight end in the new offensive scheme, but it remains to be seen how competitive UCLA will be in the end for Asiasi, who has not hesitated to point out his lifelong USC fandom to curious interviewers.
It has, however, definitely helped UCLA’s cause with Asiasi that it hired the coach who was recruiting him to USC: new Bruin quarterbacks coach Marques Tuiasosopo. If any coach out there can lure Asiasi to Westwood, it is absolutely Tuiasosopo, the legendary Polynesian, Rose Bowl-winning quarterback at Washington who won Pac-12 Recruiter of the Year in 2015 as part of the USC coaching staff.
UCLA will absolutely battle to the end in this one, but with Asiasi still having his official visit to take to USC this upcoming weekend right before Signing Day, it is hard to escape the feeling that the traditional post-visit high coupled with his long-term rooting interests will lead him to become a Trojan when it is all said and done.
Next: Offensive Line
OFFENSIVE LINE
After bringing in the top-rated offensive line class in the nation in 2015, UCLA probably thought it would be able to take it easy with offensive line recruiting in this cycle. However, as we saw time and time again during the 2015 football season, the trenches are where football games are won and lost.
With ongoing upheaval on the line after the departures of Jake Brendel (graduation), Fred Ulu-Perry (transfer), Caleb Benenoch (draft), and Alex Redmond (draft), the Bruins need to reload with offensive line talent now as much as ever. To that end, in addition to the recent pickup of Texas transfer Jake Raulerson, UCLA has secured the commitments of 3-star guard Michael Alves (San Diego, CA/St. Augustine) and 3-star offensive tackle Alex Akingbulu (Harbor City, CA/Narbonne).
Alves is a pure road-grading guard who plays the game with bad intentions. He looks to physically dominate at the point of attack and grind the person he’s blocking into the ground.
Akingbulu, on the other hand, is a pure tackle prospect who’s dripping with physical upside. At a towering 6-foot-6, he has long arms and incredible bend. However, he is going to need to gain a lot of weight when he gets to UCLA, as his year-long athletic schedule (he’s also a high-level basketball player) leaves him extremely lean and light. He’s a prospect reminiscent of former UCLA left tackle Torian White, who had similar hurdles to overcome in order to become a Bruin starter but also possessed the same freakish upside.
To round out the offensive line class, UCLA offensive line coach Adrian Klemm seems to have focused in on 3-star lineman Francisco Perez (Baldwin Park, CA/Baldwin Park). Perez is an explosive and powerful run blocker who fits very well into UCLA’s vision of a more power-oriented offense.
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Perez is currently committed to Cal, but UCLA is putting the full court press on him and you can never count out Klemm in a recruitment once he locks in on a target. Perez seems to be torn between staying local with UCLA and honoring his longtime commitment to Cal, but the Bruins really want this one to break their way because Klemm definitely rates Perez highly as an offensive guard prospect.