By Keenan Cummings
MORGANTOWN — The run on the recruiting trail for the West Virginia football program continued Saturday with a commitment from Harper Woods (Mich.) safety Christion Stokes.
Stokes, at 6-foot-1 and 180 pounds, became the eighth prospect to pledge to the Mountaineers since the calendar flipped to June, bringing the total number of commitments to 13 in the 2022 class.
The Rivals.com 3-star prospect had narrowed his options down to WVU, Iowa and Michigan State, but ultimately, the Mountaineers won out. Stokes took an official visit to Morgantown from June 4-6, an unofficial to Michigan State and then finally an official to Iowa from June 25-27.
WVU became the pick for the highly-rated safety in large part because of his fit in the defense and his connection with the coaching staff in Morgantown.
Stokes had a connection with safeties coach Dontae Wright since he was in the eighth grade and became familiar with the assistant when he was working at Western Michigan. The fact Wright continued to prioritize Stokes even after coming over to WVU resonated with him.
Stokes gives the Mountaineers a versatile safety prospect who could fill several different spots in the backend of the defensive scheme. Also a running back at the high school level, Stokes has a nice blend of size, speed and power to bring to the Mountaineers’ safety room.
All eight of the pledges for WVU the last two months have come from prospects that took official visits to campus during June and puts WVU inside the top 25 classes in the nation.
Stokes shouldn’t be the last commit, either, as a number of other prospects are set to make decisions in the coming days and weeks heading into their senior campaigns. One of those is another prospect from Michigan in Stokes’ close friend, safety Jaden Mangham, who visited campus with him in June.
Another day in July, another commitment for the Mountaineers, and this is one that will help them get into a state where they’ve not had a lot of success over the years in Michigan.
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