By Keenan Cummings
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. —
West Virginia made some noise on the recruiting trail by adding one of its top prospects remaining on the board to the 2021 class.
Germantown (Md.) Northwest wide receiver Kaden Prather picked the Mountaineers over his other four finalists which included Penn State, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Maryland. In the end, it simply came down to comfort level and fit for the talented pass catching option.
But those weren’t the only schools involved as he collected close to 40 scholarship offers from other programs such as LSU, Ohio State, Auburn, Georgia, Florida State, Miami (Fla.), Tennessee and more.
Prather, at 6-foot-3 and 198 pounds, had been on the WVU recruiting board for quite some time but received an offer from WVU last summer. Things only continued to take off from there as he made multiple visits to campus and developed a strong connection with the coaches.
That connection increased significantly when WVU hired Gerad Parker from Penn State because the assistant had been the primary contact for him with the Nittany Lions. Penn State had been considered the favorite for Prather for much of the process, but the Mountaineers seized momentum late.
“Coach Parker has been there for me since the beginning,” he said. “He offered me when he was at Penn State early in the process and ever since then, he’s been on me hard. Whether it’s about football, stuff off the field, school, he’ll check in. We have a great relationship.”
Prather has last on campus at WVU during the final junior day prior to the dead period March 7 and now has joined the class giving the program a shot in the arm in the current cycle. One of the top players on the board, the Mountaineers now have their first true wide receiver pledge in the 2021 class.
And the excitement over the commitment was evident on social media as all the coaches were posting the now patented “Let’s Go!” tweets across the various platforms.
Just narrowly missing 4-star status on Rivals.com, Prather has the size and speed to be a perfect match for what the Mountaineers want out of their outside wide receivers.
The commitment gives coach Neal Brown and company 10 pledges for the 2021 cycle with the Mountaineers expected to take close to a full allotment of 25. It also gets the program back into the talent rich state of Maryland, which is where the coaches are trying to build a foothold.
Tweet @rivalskeenan
