By Keenan Cummings
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — With recruiting visits currently on hold for the foreseeable future, prospects are starting the process of trimming down their lists and focusing in on a select number of options.
Fortunately for West Virginia, the football program has been on the plus side of things lately.
Orlando (Fla.) Edgewater athlete Christian Leary is one of the top remaining targets on the board for the Mountaineers and he recently trimmed his list to six. That group includes WVU, Florida, Oklahoma, Alabama, Auburn and Arizona State, although he continues to add scholarship offers.
While Leary is one of the few top targets that has yet to visit campus, the Rivals.com 3-star prospect has quickly developed a strong bond with running backs coach Chad Scott and is expected to take an official visit to Morgantown during the June 12 weekend.
The Mountaineers also made the initial cut for Irvington (N.J.) linebacker Mikai Gbayor, who took an unofficial visit to Morgantown for one of the junior day events in late January. The athletic linebacker trimmed his list to eight with LSU, Mississippi, Nebraska, Virginia, Kentucky, Rutgers and Syracuse rounding things out at this stage. The plan is for Gbayor to make it back to WVU when visits open back up, but for now all trips are on hold.
WVU also was included on the list for Fort Lauderdale (Fla.) Plantation wide receiver Jacolby George, a Rivals.com 4-star prospect who is rated inside the top 250 nationally. George trimmed his options down to the Mountaineers, along with Miami, Penn State, Georgia Tech, Pittsburgh and Central Florida. The next step will be to get him on campus in order to highlight the program.
While longer in nature, another key target that has included WVU in his group is Highland Springs (Va.) defensive end Kelvin Gillam. The 4-star prospect has been to campus and was highly impressed and now placed WVU in his top 15 with plans to cut that even further moving forward.
The Mountaineers have obviously been on the other side of the coin with some top targets cutting their lists and not including the program, but more often than not, it’s been positive news. Recruiting is a little different right now, but the positive news is that WVU is being included on much more of these top targets lists than they aren’t.
Momentum is hard to maintain right now but the coaching staff is certainly trying their best.
