My Beaver Blog

February 4th marked the first day that players could sign LOI's to play DI football for the 2005 season. The Beavers did their usual signing JC players to fill immediate needs and expanding the talent pool with some skilled guys out of high school. No superstars according to all the rating experts who picked the Beavers class as 8th to 10th out of the 10 Pac 10 schools. Not that that means much. These are the same guys, along with most schools, who underrated receiving stud Mike Hass when he walked on at OSU.

Here is how the 2005 class shapes up.

With the departure of Browner and Williams there was a glaring hole at CB. Consider it resolved. Riley and Co. signed two JC studs to plug those holes immediately. One, Edorian McCullough, was originally a Texas signee and passed up offers from others this year including Oklahoma. The other, Aaron Miller, was a former Oklahoma signee and is bigger at 6'2" and 205, but can still run a 4.5 40. He turned down offers from USC and Cal in favor of the Beavs.

Also out of the the JC ranks the Beavs signed another stud TE in Jason Vandiver. While he can catch he is known as a great blocking TE, something the Beavs could use to bolster the pathetic running game of 2004.

The Beavs landed 3 home staters in LB Kevin Maher, OL Michael Marks and LB Bryant Cornell. Maher played for state runner-up Lake Oswego and was the 4A offensive player of the year. Marks played 8 on 8 out in Burns and has good size at 6'5" and 300.

The only area the Beavs feel like they failed was at DE. Needing to replace Swanny the Beavs were hopeful of landing the #1 DE in the country in Grants N. Suh. He opted for Nebraska instead.

Here are the bios of all the recruits and Riley's comments.

Go Beavs.