UCLA Football Recruiting: Top QB Recruit Dorian Thompson-Robinson Commits to UCLA

UCLA Football capped off its biggest recruiting weekend of the year so far with a commitment from its top quarterback recruit in the 2018 class, 4-star QB Dorian Thompson-Robinson.

For the third day in a row, UCLA Football has gotten a commitment from a highly-rated skill position player. This time though, it’s the most important player on UCLA’s recruiting board who has made the call to become a Bruin, as 4-star QB Dorian Thompson-Robinson (Las Vegas, NV/Bishop Gorman) announced his commitment to the Bruins tonight through his Twitter account.

In the end, Thompson-Robinson (or DTR as he is known colloquially to recruiting analysts, recruiting followers, and keystroke economizers) was down to UCLA and Michigan as his final two schools, but he had scholarship offers from almost every major Power 5 program in the country, which is astonishing given the remarkable fact that Thompson-Robinson has yet to even start a high school football game at quarterback yet.

https://twitter.com/DoriansTweets/status/856326656918560768

Coaches, though, gave Thompson-Robinson a break knowing that he was stuck behind another blue-chip QB in Ohio State signee Tate Martell for the last couple years at Bishop Gorman. They instead offered him based on the absolutely immense talent he showed on the 7-on-7 and camp circuits, where he has been a consistent standout the last two offseasons, and in his limited quarterback reps for Gorman.

Thompson-Robinson is also such a dynamic athlete that Gorman coaches started him as a wide receiver just to get his speed and elusiveness on the field in some capacity even though they couldn’t make him the starting signal-caller ahead of Martell, and that move paid off handsomely for the Gaels with DTR catching 22 passes for 397 yards and eight touchdowns. He also ran for six TDs.

It’s rare that you can say a high school quarterback with no starting experience through his junior year is a proven elite talent, but Thompson-Robinson is exactly that and should flourish in his senior season now that his turn under center at Gorman has come.

Thompson-Robinson has been the top 2018 quarterback on UCLA football’s board ever since he was offered by the Bruins after a sparkling performance at the Bruin Elite Camp on campus in Westwood last June. He was also heavily recruited by new Bruins offensive coordinator Jedd Fisch while Fisch was at Michigan, which prompted DTR to say that when UCLA hired Fisch over the offseason, it made the Bruins the clear leader to land his pledge. He told USA Today Sports in an extensive post-commitment interview that “I fell in love with [UCLA] from the first time I visited there. I was really fighting to get that offer, but I had to push all last summer and I finally got it. After I did their camp, they extended their offer to me and I knew that’s where I wanted to be. They pushed and fought for me, and made me do the same, and I liked that. Their program is also up and coming and they play top competition every year. It’s a great fit for me.”

But while this has been a bit of a fait accompli for some time now, it is no less significant of a development for UCLA, which has struggled in quarterback recruiting since Josh Rosen arrived in the 2015 class and has a mess of unproven raw talents behind Rosen on the current depth chart with no clear plan of succession in place once Rosen leaves UCLA to the enter the NFL Draft after the 2017 season.

Next: 4-Star WR Kyle Philips Commits to UCLA

DTR, ranked as a top-40 overall player in the 2018 class, is by far the highest-rated quarterback the Bruins have landed since Rosen and when he arrives in 2018, he will have a real shot to seize the UCLA starting quarterback job that Rosen will be vacating. It is no stretch at all to imagine Thompson-Robinson standing behind center taking the opening offensive snap of the season on September 1, 2018 when UCLA football lines up at the Rose Bowl against the Cincinnati Bearcats.

Welcome to Westwood, Dorian!