ECU Lands Several New Pirates In Early Signing Period
ECU landed a pretty good haul of new Pirate football players for the early national signing day on Wednesday.
The grouping includes a grouping of linebackers and defensive backs along with additional help at kicker, wide receiver, quarterback, defensive line, linebacker, tight end and offensive line.
The best of the bunch includes explosive running back Joseph McKay out of Phenix City, Alabama who rushed for 1,500 yards this past season on 178 carries with 21 touchdowns. McKay held several SEC and ACC offers earlier in the process.
Another really good one is Chesterfield, Virginia athlete Jacob Coleman who picked ECU over Coastal Carolina and Rutgers along with quarterback Walter Simmons III who held offers from LSU, Illinois, Georgia Tech, Memphis, Marshall, Virginia, Virginia Tech and West Virginia. All of those are ranked the highest at 5.6 among the five true three-stars in this year’s December class.
Another interesting prospect is Matoaca High wide receiver Troy Lewis who at 6-3, 200 had 35 catches for 672 yards and five touchdowns as a junior and held thirty scholarship offers. In the end it came down to ECU, ODU, Liberty and Coastal Carolina. The addition of Lewis gives the Pirates four players from the Chesterfield, Virginia school on the ECU roster, two of which are brothers in Jacob Coleman and current ECU freshmen Jonathan Coleman along with defensive lineman Manny Hickman.
Kingston McKinstry out of Iowa Central C.C. at 6-1, 195 is a hard hitting safety who was credited with 21 tackles, four pass breakups and 2.5 tackles for loss as a freshman and joins Clyatt and Sanford, N.C. defensive back Jayden Chalmers among this year’s defensive secondary commitments for the Pirates.
Linebackers Cruz Temple from Abbeville, S.C. is a 5-11, 205 pound outside linebacker from Abbeville, South Carolina and held offers to Navy, Army and Air Force among his nine current known offers. He was an All-State, All Lakeland's and All-Region selection.
He along with Jacoby Simpson out of Cisco Community College in Houston are both expected to eventually be solid contributors for ECU at linebacker.
Simpson was originally a part of the TCU class of 2018 out of MacArthur High in Houston where he was ranked a 5.7 3-Star with 14 offers including Arizona State, TCU, Arkansas, Houston, Colorado State, Kansas, Kansas State, Louisville, New Mexico, Memphis, Texas Tech, Tulane, North Texas and UTSA. He was a 6A honorable-mention all-state by the Associated Press as a senior totaled 116 tackles, including 19 for loss, with eight sacks and two interceptions.
ECU head coach Mike Houston talked about the new group of Pirates on Wednesday and said under the current recruiting climate, things could get tight for some really good players looking for a slot.
“The signing class right now is comprised of 16 signees. We still do have five remaining slots that we’re going to be very deliberate with,” said Houston, “This is going to be a year, and we’ve talked honestly to the recruits about this, I think you’re going to see a lot of different things as we go through the spring and the summer. I think you’re going to see limited spaces and some really good players struggling to find a home.”
Houston outlined the deversified makeup of this year's recruiting crop geographically.
“Today we’re signing four student athletes from the state of North Carolina, two from the state of Virginia, one from South Carolina, three from the state of Alabama, two from the state of Florida, two from Ohio, one from Texas and one from Georgia,” Houston stated, “Of those sixteen signees, seven will be midyear enrollees who will start with us here next month when the January semester starts up.”
“This group is comprised of eight offensive players, seven defensive players and one specialist,” Houston said, “Of those five remaining spots, several are earmarked for offensive linemen as we continue to look for exactly what we want with those slots.”
Missing from the early signee list is a pair of Rivals three-star commits in wide receiver Javonte Sherman and safety Jaylen Clyatt.
2021 ECU DECEMBER RECRUITING CLASS
Jacob Coleman ATH
Jalen Clyatt ATH
Joseph McKay RB
Canaan Clark DT
Cruz Temple LB
Theodore Lockley ATH
Troy Lewis WR
Julius Wood DB
Avery Durham DL
D.J. Ford DB
Ryan Jones TE
Laith Marjan K/P
