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Leach: Biggest Signing Day surprise was no surprises

Mike Leach
Mike Leach

Mike Leach experienced something for the first time in his college coaching career Wednesday as National Signing Day unfolded.

Everything – literally – fell into place for Washington State as the signed letters of intent rolled in, most of them before 10 a.m. No unpleasant surprises, no last minute reversals, no decommitments.

What a difference a year makes.

“I’m stunned to say there was nothing stunning (that happened),” Leach said during his Signing Day Press Conference. “The most noticeable thing about this class is that it went almost entirely as expected. That would be the first time that has happened for me. And it literally did go as expected. No exceptions.

“Typically, there is some jumbling going on. Nothing surprised me. We turned people away at the end. What’s the explanation? Our staff did a tremendous job recruiting. It’s becoming apparent nationally what a great product we have here and the commitment that exists here.

“Our new facilities helped too. Everybody wants to be a part of a place that is committed. Sometimes illustrating that commitment takes time. Our facilities are the best in the conference. Once people actually saw them in person, word got out.”

After watching last year’s signing class dissolve in the final hours, Leach altered WSU’s recruiting strategy for the 2016 cycle by waiting to conduct all official visits until after the end of the season, putting them within weeks of signing day and diminishing the chances of a last minute change of heart.

“It helped for sure,” Leach said. “Where I found (the new approach) beneficial was we could devote a lot of our attention to the recruits. If you bring them in for a game, there is excitement of the game, the players are coming and going, coaches are coming and going. This way, we can focus on the recruit and his family. You don’t have the flash of the game, but we’ll show the film of it. I thought it worked out really well for us. We had great visits.”

If there was any surprise, it was a pleasant one for the Cougars – JUCO transfer LB Suliasi Tamaivena, who lists Kirkland, WA as his hometown, signed with the Cougars out of Mt. San Antonio College in California.

Washington State focused on two things in this year’s signing class: offensive line and speed on defense.

Mission accomplished on both ends.

“I’d say this is a combination of the biggest and fastest class we’ve recruited since we’ve been here,” Leach said. “The fact we attack to the extent we do on defense and Alex (Grinch) is himself a great recruiter has had an impact. The highlight film (of the 2016 signees) we’re showing is full of sacks and tackles for loss and some quarterback getting blown up.”

Four of the six signed offensive linemen are listed at 295 pounds or more.

“We were looking for big offensive linemen and we got a bunch of those,” Leach said.

Four players enrolled at WSU for the spring semester – WR Isaiah Johnson, DE Garrett McBroom, QB/ATH Justus Rogers and DB Jalen Thompson.

Johnson, a high school teammate of Cougs WR Tavares Martin Jr., was rated one of the top 90 wide receivers in the country by Rivals.com. At one point, he was committed to Florida before backing off his pledge.

“He’s a big guy and will probably play on the outside,” Leach said. “He is a very broad-shouldered guy. He is still growing. He will get bigger. He is very smart and has picked things up very fast. He is confident, so he doesn’t get in his own way. There is a smoothness to the way he runs.”

Washington State signed four wide receivers, three of whom stand 6-foot-2 or taller. Johnson is listed 6-foot-3, 211 pounds, so he arrived in Pullman already owning good size for a receiver in Leach’s prolific Air Raid system.

“We tried to get some size into the receiver mix,” Leach said. “The fact (Tavares Martin was a HS teammate of Johnson) certainly didn’t hurt. There were a couple of things. One, we’ve led the nation in passing two years in a row. Second, there is an assurance there will be quality quarterbacks around you if you’re a wide receiver.” Third, we have a number of wide receivers in the NFL. So, Tavares may had had a role, but there were other factors.”

The Cougars signed six offensive linemen – Nilsson Gaisoa (Kailua, HI), Christian Haangana (Milpitas, Calif.), Keenen King (Las Vegas), Frederick Mauigoa (Pago Pago, American Samoa), Liam Ryan (La Verne, Calif.) and Joshua Watson (Everett, WA).

Some analysts described Gaisoa as a ‘secret commitment,’ but Leach shrugged off that label.

“He wasn’t very secret to me,” Leach said. “He came on a visit and all that. We’re thrilled to have Nilsson. He’s big and he’s going to get bigger. Shoot, when we went on the home visit, there were some dudes in that house bigger than (defensive line coach) Joe (Salave’a).”

Former Cougs commit Jaelen Lewis flipped to San Jose State on Tuesday, but any damage from that decommitment, which was not unexpected considering he took multiple official visits to other schools in January, was softened considerably on Wednesday when Frederick Mauigoa signed with WSU over Oregon State.

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