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UCLA Football Recruiting: The February ‘8Clap8th’ scholarship offers

By Mike Regalado

PASADENA, CA - SEPTEMBER 01: Head coach Chip Kelly of the UCLA Bruins during warm up before the home opening game against the Cincinnati Bearcats at Rose Bowl on September 1, 2018 in Pasadena, California. (Photo by Harry How/Getty Images)
PASADENA, CA - SEPTEMBER 01: Head coach Chip Kelly of the UCLA Bruins during warm up before the home opening game against the Cincinnati Bearcats at Rose Bowl on September 1, 2018 in Pasadena, California. (Photo by Harry How/Getty Images) /
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The new UCLA football recruiting plan begins today as the coaching staff has given out several offers to multiple recruits on this ‘8Clap8th’.

What is ‘8Clap8th’? It is a new recruiting campaign created by the UCLA football team to own the 8th day of every month with a horde of scholarship offers to recruits across the nation. It seems to be UCLA’s way of injecting life into their recruiting plan.

RECRUITING RELATED: UCLA’s 2019 National Signing Day | NSD Post-Mortem

So what did the first wave of offers look like? Let us take a look at who received an offer.

February ‘8Clap8th’ Scholarship Offers

  • Sam Adams II, RB ★★★★ Eastside Catholic/Sammamish, WA
  • Jordan Botelho, LB ★★★★ St. Louis School/Honolulu, HI
  • Dejuan Butler, CB (NR) Antioch/Antioch, CA
  • Van Filinger, DE (NR) Corner Canyon/Draper, UT
  • Ayden Hector, CB ★★★★ East Side Catholic/Sammamish, WA
  • Nick Herbig, LB ★★★ St. Louis School/Honolulu, HI
  • Ramon Henderson, WR (NR) Liberty/Bakersfield, CA
  • Jaylan Jeffers, OT ★★★ Saguaro/Scottsdale, AZ
  • Nathaniel Jones, RB ★★★★St. John Bosco/Bellflower, CA
  • Sitiveni Kaufusi, RB ★★★ Punahou/Honolulu, HI
  • Trey Paster, ATH (NR) Buhach Colony/Atwater, CA
  • Tobin Phillips, DT (NR) San Joaquin Memorial/Fresno, CA
  • Latham Ransom, S ★★★★ Salpointe Catholic/Tucson, AZ
  • Noah Sewell, LB ★★★★ Orem/Orem, UT
  • Jack Yary, TE ★★★ Murrieta Valley/Murrieta, CA

Offers By State

AZ: 2 | CA: 6 | HI: 3 | UT: 2 | WA: 2

Offers By Rankings

5-star: 0 | 4-star: 6 | 3-star: 4 | NR: 5

Offers By Position

QB: 0 | RB: 3 | WR: 1 | TE: 1 | OL: 1 | DL: 2 | LB: 3 | DB: 3 | ATH: 1 | ST: 0

Thoughts on the ‘8Clap8th’ Offers

The list from above has 15 recruits that UCLA has targeted and now offered. The Bruins’ coaching staff has definitely seized the day when it comes to sending out offers, but a few questions arise. Is this the only day UCLA will offer scholarships? If so, that could put them behind a lot of other programs if, for example, a recruit has an amazing performance in a game on the 9th, 10th or 11th of the month. Is UCLA going to wait an entire month to offer after other schools have already made contact?

Hopefully, they spread it out a little bit to give out offers immediately and not pigeon hole themselves to just one day a month.

The point of this, I believe, is to give UCLA football’s recruiting efforts a jump start. With an underwhelming 2019 National Signing Day, the coaching staff needed something else to help those efforts.

Now on to the players…

This is not going to be an analytical piece. Instead, I am going to look at the distribution from today’s offers. The first thing I noticed is that all of these offers are to west coast and Hawaiian players, which tells me that UCLA might be looking more locally. There has not been a single player offered a scholarship that is outside the Pac-12 or the Pacific.

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Another thing that caught my eye was that UCLA had more offers to 4-star rated players than to  3-star and NR (not rated) players. Is the coaching staff purposefully targeting more elite players or do these prospects just happen to fall into what Kelly and Co. are trying to build?

Lastly, UCLA offered a player at every position except quarterbacks and special teams (a side note about special teams — it seems Kelly is bringing in walk-ons for these positions, leaving scholarships available for other positions).

UCLA was targeting two QBs last recruiting cycle and only landed one, which means that they have to try and prioritize their QB targets. But because this is the most difficult position to analyze and recruit (and because this is only the first ‘8Clap8th’), we might see a few QB offers in the future.

The position groups that UCLA targeted the most are running backs, linebackers and defensive backs. The RBs and DBs seem to be normative, but it is especially good to see that LBs have been made a priority.

Next. UCLA Football National Signing Day 2019. dark

UCLA has only brought four linebackers in the last two years and with the Bruins losing five after next season, they are going to have to load up as soon as possible.