Looking at how the 2020 West Virginia football recruiting class stacks up

West Virginia has eleven commitments in the 2020 class at the dead period and it’s a good time to reflect on how those efforts match what head coach Neal Brown discussed when he was hired as the school's head coach.

So we examine all eleven commitments to see how the class is being comprised including which geographic regions that the Mountaineers are landing prospects from in this cycle.

--When Brown took the job he made it clear that West Virginia would be spending the majority of their recruiting efforts by keeping their best at home, in a six-hour radius in the states surrounding the Mountain State and in the Southeast. Well, looking at that list of ten players all but basically two of those fall into that category.

--Those two exceptions are prospects that West Virginia was able to see in a camp setting with St. Louis (Mo.) pass rusher Lanell Carr, who the coaches saw at the Lindenwood satellite camp in Missouri, and international cornerback Jairo Faverus who camped in Morgantown for a one-day event June 14 and earned an offer.

--One of the major commitments in regards to that initial message was securing Fairmont (W.Va.) offensive lineman Zach Frazier, the first scholarship player to commit to the Mountaineers in-state after Brown took over as the head coach. The program has landed one of the top priority in-state options in this class and while Bluefield (W.Va.) defensive end Sean Martin is committed to North Carolina I expect things aren't quite done yet.

--The states represented in the commitment list are Florida (2), West Virginia (1), Ohio (1), Maryland (1), New Jersey (1), Kentucky (1), Michigan (1), Georgia (1), Missouri (1) and International (1). All of those states outside of Missouri, which has only sent Chase Behrndt, Michigan to some degree and the obvious dipping into the international pool have all been well established states that have been successful recruiting grounds for the program.

--West Virginia has two junior college commitments in offensive lineman Jacob Gamble and pass rusher S.L. McCall but both of which were offered scholarship by April in the process, reinforcing what Brown had told me in a one-on-one sit down about making junior college recruiting more of a long term endeavor than many schools. That approach allows the coaches to build bonds with players and treat it almost as if it's similar to recruiting a high school player. Both players will enroll in January.

--Something that stuck out to me when speaking with Brown was that he reinforced the need for the coaches to have strong relationships with players that commit to the program as well as to try and get them on campus multiple times. Each of the prospects that have pledged so far meet that criteria outside of S.L. McCall who made a trip to Morgantown on his own dime prior to his commitment, Taurus Simmons who took an official visit to see things in-depth and Jairo Faverus, who is obviously a different case being an international prospect. Each of the other prospects the coaches either saw in camp settings or during the evaluation period and they visited Morgantown in order to establish a strong connection.

--There is obviously more work to do which will be interesting to track moving forward. But with ten commitments, the West Virginia recruiting class currently ranks 50th in the Rivals.com formula, but sits third in the Big 12 Conference in quality of recruit with a average star rating of 3.11.

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