First and 10: Midwest surprise commitments

The spring evaluation period is barely a week old, and already more than 110 prospects in the Midwest region have rendered commitments to FBS programs. Here are 10 of those commitments that surprised us the most.

A recruiting process that started early also appeared to end early when Johnson made a pledge to Tennessee last August. That choice was predictable as the Volunteers were in on the five-star signal-caller early, he made several visits to Knoxville and expressed strong interest in the program throughout. What was less predictable was that Johnson would rescind that pledge four months later and switch his commitment to Clemson after making a cloak-and-dagger visit to see the Tigers earlier that month. The situation stayed surprising when fellow Rivals250 signal caller Chase Brice committed to Clemson just two days after Johnson.

A 6-foot-4, 277-pound two-way lineman, Paea came into this recruiting process with several connections that were expected to factor into his recruitment. His former teammate at Berrien Springs, Nick Padla, is at Michigan State. The majority of his extended family lives in the western part of the country and programs from that region like BYU and Oregon were among his first offers. Michigan was one place he did not have a particularly compelling connection to, yet that is where he pledged on April 2. His proximity to the Ann Arbor campus did allow Paea to visit the Wolverines several times during the process, and that fostered familiarity with a program he said felt like family when he committed.

Northwestern had emerged as the team to beat for Kent in the days leading up to his commitment announcement on March 23, but prior to a visit to Evanston the weekend before there was no indication that the Kansas native would end up a Wildcat or that his recruitment would end so soon. Even Kent himself admitted that when Northwestern had offered him the previous fall, it was just a school that he’d seen on television a few times and he was not even sure where it was located. In the six months from the time Northwestern became his first offer until he made the commitment, though, Kent did his homework and fell in love with the school.

Twelve days after Kent committed to Northwestern, Wolma joined him in pledging his services to the Wildcats. Three days after that he announced he had de-committed and was pledging to Arizona. Wolma said he had “lost sight of where I know I belong” when he made the initial commitment to Northwestern, but it was still an odd turn of events. Wolma has been friends with UA quarterback commit Rhett Rodriguez since his father, current Arizona head coach Rich Rodriguez, was coaching at Michigan and the family lived near Wolma’s southeastern Michigan home. De-committing from a regional school after three days to attend a college 2,000 miles away is certainly in the “surprise” category, though.

All but one of the top 10 players in the state of Iowa’s 2017 class have already made their commitments, and seven of those prospects have pledged to one of the two in-state Power Five programs: the Iowa Hawkeyes or Iowa State Cyclones. Dykstra, a 6-foot-6, 290-pound offensive tackle who resides in the extreme northern part of the state, held offers from both of the in-state Power Five programs, but on April 11 announced his commitment to the Miami Hurricanes, the only other Power Five school to offer. Spurning the in-state programs in a year which they are dominating home turf was surprising enough, but choosing an ACC school in South Florida makes it doubly so.

Richardson’s recruitment has been one of the oddest to follow in the 2017 class. The Rivals100 prospect has already demonstrated immense talent, but he has an offer list that does not match his rating. The issue is the way Richardson went about his recruiting process early on, failing to respond to coaches who had shown interest and not making campus visits he had promised to make. Instead of ramping up his responsiveness on the recruiting trail, however, Richardson decided to commit to the first school that had offered him a scholarship early in his sophomore year: Kentucky.

This was a case where the destination was not necessarily surprising, but the timing of the announcement caught many off guard even though Simmons said he had been thinking about it for some time. With more than 40 scholarship offers in-hand, most coming during his junior season, Simmons did not lack options. He narrowed his choices down to a top 11 in January and expectations were he would spend the spring and summer, possibly even the fall, visiting and researching those programs. The Rivals250 linebacker barely made it out of February, however, announcing his commitment to Ohio State on March 1.

Where does a Chicago kid with offers from Alabama, Georgia, Michigan State, Ohio State and 20 more schools commit to? Duke, of course. While the Blue Devils may not be the name that jumps out most on Marwede’s extensive offer list, the school does have something that few other Division I programs can match: a world class degree. Marwede’s father played for Yale and the family puts a premium on academics. That was evident in the schools he chose to visit and was recruited heavily by, including other premier academic institutions like Northwestern and Vanderbilt. Marwede wanted to make his decision early, and he pledged to Duke on March 31.

The 6-foot-5, 230-pound Cossou is a three-star tight end prospect ranked as the No. 16 player in the state of Michigan’s 2016 class. He went into the spring evaluation period with plenty of Mid-American Conference offers, but still waiting on his first Power Five offer. Coussou’s talent level (and, thus, his rating) projected those offers were in his future and several schools planned to see him once coaches could get on the road. Instead, however, Cossou committed to Central Michigan the day after the evaluation period opened. Their campus is only an hour’s drive from his home and a teammate was already committed to the Chippewas, but the timing definitely was surprising and three days later that first Power Five offer did come, from Nebraska.

We should probably not be surprised any more that Kevin Wilson and his staff are able to land four-star prospects, but they battled several traditional recruiting powers like Michigan, Tennessee and Wisconsin to land Bowden. They also secured his commitment very early in the process. Indiana had already established itself as a top contender for the four-star athlete prospect before he visited Bloomington in mid-February, but that trip clinched the decision for the Ohio native. The Hoosiers' offense under Wilson has been consistently among the Big Ten’s best and they see Bowden filling the running back role in future versions of that offense.