Feb. 6, 2008
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LAS VEGAS - UNLV's fourth football recruiting class under head coach Mike Sanford was announced on the initial day of the national signing period Wednesday with 22 student-athletes making up the list of future Rebels. A stunning 21 played in high school last season, which translates into the highest such percentage of a class (95 percent freshmen) in program history.
"We have evolved into recruiting nearly all high school football players," Sanford said. "When we first got here, we had to replace a large number of players who were leaving so we needed to get some four-year transfers and more JC players right away. It's very important to recruit high school players and that has become our main thrust. We look for character, attitude, toughness, football intelligence and players from winning programs. We feel that recruiting high school players is the best opportunity for us to get those kinds of student-athletes."
The group boasts nine players that earned PrepStar All-Region honors in 2007, which ties the 2005 class for the most ever at UNLV.
For the second consecutive year UNLV's class consists of student-athletes whose hometowns are spread among just five states - all located west of the Mississippi: nine from California, four each from high-school hotbed Texas and Arizona, three from Nevada and two out of Hawaii.
"Not only have we continued to heavily recruit California but we've also done very well in Arizona and Texas," Sanford said. "We put two coaches in both states and a combination of that stronger presence, good evaluation and the close proximity to Las Vegas helped us. For families, it's an easy flight here from Texas and not much of a drive from Arizona. Recruiting locally has also been a focus of ours and it's very important to us that we signed three guys from Southern Nevada."
The recruits list, which does not include two grayshirts who signed a year ago but joined the program this semester as true freshmen, features just one junior-college player, LB Heivaha Mafi, who signed during December's early period and is currently enrolled at UNLV. He and the grayshirts, Nate Carter and Yusef Rodgers, are set to take part in spring practice from March 10-April 18.
Unlike a year ago, the class leans toward the offense with 12 players hailing from that side of the ball. Eight signees play defense while two players are listed as an Athlete. Linemen are the most represented areas on both sides of the ball with five each. The full breakdown is as follows: 5 OL, 5 DL, 3 WR, 2 LB, 2 RB, 2 ATH, 1 QB, 1 DB and 1 TE.
"Our staff felt going in that we needed to recruit defensive linemen and we filled that need. We wanted to sign a dynamic break-away runner and feel like we got two. We wanted to get guys to help us in our return game and we got those along with players that are going to have a chance to compete right away at linebacker."
UNLV 2008 FOOTBALL RECRUITING CLASS
2007 MID-YEAR SIGNEES
NAME POS HT WT CL-EXP HOMETOWN PREVIOUS SCHOOLHeivaha Mafi DE 6-2 235 JR-TR Oakland, CA Laney College
2008 SIGNEES
NAME POS HT WT CL-EXP HOMETOWN PREVIOUS SCHOOLJesse Backerman DE 6-3 230 FR-HS Tucson, AZ Marana HSDavid Blair LB 6-2 220 FR-HS Tempe, AZ McClintock HSBeau Brence DE 6-4 235 FR-HS Plano, TX Plano Senior HSGordy Cooper WR 6-5 215 FR-HS San Jacinto, CA San Jacinto HSC.J. Cox RB 5-11 190 FR-HS Garland, TX N. Garland HSJason Heath OL 6-4 265 FR-HS Penryn, CA Del Oro HSMichael
