JC TE a wanted man

Sometimes a player comes seemingly out of nowhere and explodes onto the recruiting radar screen.

When Ray Gurley, Jr. came out of Little Elm High School (Texas) in 2001, he didn't have any firm Division I offers.

His high school coach had played for Pittsburg State, a Division-II school in Kansas, so he directed Gurley to his alma mater.

After playing as a true freshman, Gurley felt he wanted more and transferred to Independence (Kan.) Community College.

"I felt I was under-recruited out of high school because Little Elm is a small town," the 6-foot-5, 256-pound Gurley said. "After getting on the field as a true freshman for Pitt State, I decided to try junior college

and see if I could get offers from D-I schools. I was just hoping to get a D-I offer, I had no idea I would get the kind of attention I have wound up getting."

And what kind of attention is that? We asked Kent Keith, coach at Independence, to comment on it.

"Ray has offers from Nebraska, Mississippi State, Arizona, Southern Mississippi, Kansas, Kansas State and North Texas," Keith said. "Those are some I can think of off the top of my head. The Central Florida coaches tried to get him to skip this season and head right to their school for this fall, since he is qualified, but he will

play here instead and sign somewhere in December.

"He's legit," Keith continued. "A North Texas coach came through here and said he couldn't believe they'd never heard of him coming out of high school, since Denton

is not all that far from Little Elm."

A lot of D-I recruiters became aware of Gurley when he had a very good showing at a junior college combine in Texas this summer, clocking a 4.59 in the 40-yard dash and posting a 37.5" vertical leap.