By Keenan Cummings
The spring evaluation period is underway and that means a whole lot of new when it comes to football recruiting.
New names on the board and new scholarship offers going out as the assistant coaches make their rounds at the various schools in their respective recruiting grounds across the nation.
It’s already resulted in a few fresh faces being added to the recruiting board with many more to come.
Toledo (Oh.) Whitmer defensive lineman Cavon Butler had been discussing with the coaching staff about dates for him to camp in Morgantown in hopes of earning a scholarship offer. Turns out, he didn’t need to as the coaches awarded him with one after stopping by his school.
Butler, 6-foot-3, 265-pounds, already has set a visit to Morgantown June 16 and is excited to see what the program has to offer after discussing things with assistant Dan Gerberry.
“I thought this was a huge offer because it’s my second power five offer and it’s from the Big 12,” he said. “I’m not going to forget about that.”
Another in very much the same boat is Solon (Oh.) defensive end Nate Leskovec. The coaches initially visited him during the winter evaluation period but held off on extending a scholarship offer.
After a few months and 25-pounds later, the wait was over.
“They liked my film and thought it was a good time to offer me. I was obviously really excited but it did surprise me,” he said.
Switching states, Moultrie (Ga.) Colquitt County linebacker Rashard Revels has long been interested in the WVU football program for another reason altogether but the evaluation period paid off for him, too.
Revels, who is listed as a linebacker but will likely play safety in college, idolizes another former hard-hitter in the secondary in former Mountaineer Karl Joseph. After the program offered him a scholarship upon paying him a visit at school, WVU immediately shot to the top of his list.
That’s saying something considering he is quickly approaching 30 offers.
“Karl Joseph was the reason I started playing defense in the first place,” he said. “They always produce dogs on defense. It’s a great offer.”
Expect offers to continue to flow over the next couple weeks as well with coaches mapping out prospects to help fill out the recruiting class.
Keenan Cummings is the Senior Writer for WVSports.com with the Rivals.com/Yahoo Network.
