Score one for the Wildcats

It won’t go down as an official member of the Class of 2004, but score one huge recruiting battle victory for the Arizona Wildcats and new head coach Mike Stoops.

Three-star outside linebacker James Alford signed last season with West Virginia out of Metairie (La.) East Jefferson, turning down scholarship offers from Baylor, Clemson, Colorado, Florida, Miami and Tennessee.

He then arrived on campus at West Virginia, and according to Alford, the Mountaineers decided to gray shirt him one day before fall football camp was to begin.

A gray shirt is when schools allow a recruit to come on campus attend classes as a part-time student and his college eligibility clock does not start until the spring semester of his first year there when he’s put on scholarship. Alford said that’s not the deal he signed up for and decided to leave West Virginia.

So the search for a new school led to him Arizona, where he took an official visit this past weekend. Once he started to spent time with coach Stoops and the new Wildcat coaching staff, he said it was an easy decision.

“I’m heading to Arizona,” Alford, who is 6-foot-3 and 220 pounds, said. “I’m going to start classes there in January. I won’t actually sign a letter of intent, but I’m going to Arizona. I’m back here in New Orleans making plans to move all my stuff up there.”

Since he won’t sign a national letter of intent, he doesn’t officially count as a commitment per Rivals.com’s standards, but this is no doubt a big recruiting victory for the new Arizona staff.

“I always admired coach Stoops when he was at Oklahoma, and I wanted Oklahoma to recruit me really heavily in high school, but they were looking at other guys,” Alford, who was ranked as the nation’s No. 48 linebacker in 2003, said.

“But I spent a lot of time this week with coach Mark (Stoops), and I’m really excited about playing for a group of coaches like that.”