Feb 2 / Rob

JMU Recruits Talented QBs and Monsters to Protect Them

Pure passing QB recruit, Billy Cosh.

For the umpteenth consecutive year, JMU (and every other school in the country) has signed it’s best recruiting class ever. Good to know that very significant streak is kept alive. This year’s class contains 15 recruits. Three players, Andre Coble, Billy Cosh, and Casey Kroll are already enrolled, on campus, and ready to participate in spring practice. Cosh is a transfer QB from Kansas State, who redshirted and comes to JMU with 4 years of eligibility remaining. In 2009 he was the Washington Post All Met Player of the Year and Maryland Offensive Player of the Year. He threw for more yards (7,433) and TDs (112) than any other QB in Maryland high school football history. Apparently, the coaches told him they were willing to open up the offense and pass more if he earned the job. I certainly hope so.

As JMU fans have learned, it often takes more than 1 QB to get through a season and not all recruits pan out. One of the marquee recruits from last year’s class, QB Henry Hunter, didn’t even make it through the season and is no longer at JMU. Mickey Matthews informed everyone today that Justin Thorpe still isn’t 100% healthy. And while we’ve decided to avoid the entire topic until the facts are clear, sometimes college kids find themselves in bad situations. So I’d say it’s good to recruit depth at a position as important as QB.

Duel threat QB recruit, Andre Coble.

To address that need for depth, JMU signed Andre Coble in addition to Cosh. He is a QB who spent the past year at Fork Union Military Academy, after originally committing to play for Temple coming out of high school As you can see from this video, he had offers from some other decent schools, including UNC and West Virginia, at the time. He was supposedly rated as 3 star recruit by Rivals, but I can’t find any evidence of that (and it means nothing anyway). He is a more typical JMU QB (aka a dual threat) and supposedly a terrific athlete who could play multiple positions.

All of the signing day hype is a bit over the top, but like fans everywhere I love to imagine that every one of these kids will become a star. I’ll be the first to admit that I have absolutely no clue how these guys will develop though. Without trying to predict how things will turn out, I can tell you that this class has some really big dudes in it. Croll, Wray Fucci, and Andrew Baumgardner have the makings of a huge offensive line for the Dukes. The 3 players are 6’5″, 265 lbs, 6’6″, 260 lbs and 6’3″, 240 lbs. The size isn’t found just on that side of the line either. Future CAA QBs will need to stand in the pocket as 6’6″ 220 lb DE Claudy Mathieu and 6’3″, 265 lb Alex Mosley charge at them. Hand those guys their JAC cards, point them toward D-Hall, and get them in the weight room!.

JMUsports.com has the vitals for very recruit in the class with accompanying highlight videos including comments from Mickey.

4 Comments

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  1. Todd / Feb 2 2011

    For all the yak that’s been coming out of Norfolk (ODuh), turns out things look just fine for the Dukes! Appears the same can’t be said for W&M, but as you said, this is a huge crapshoot, maybe even moreso at FCS than FBS Level.

  2. Gasface / Feb 2 2011

    “6’3?, 240 lbs” – Isn’t that smaller than Jari?

  3. Rob / Feb 3 2011

    Yeah, but those are Jari’s numberas AFTER 4.5 years of d-hall. And I have a hunch it’s a different sort of 240 lbs.

  4. GO DUKES / Feb 22 2011

    Highlight video for Alex Mosley:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVVBw0Tlwv8

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