2016 Boise State Recruit Roundup: December 27th, 2015

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful holiday with plenty of time with family and friends to go along with all the delicious food and drinks. A lot happened this week. The Broncos absolutely THROTTLED Northern Illinois in the Poinsettia Bowl. It almost didn't seem fair really. The defeated "the next Boise State" 55-7 with a 621 yards of disparity on offense. You read that correctly. The Broncos had 621 MORE yards than NIU had total. They ended with 33 TOTAL yards. Ryan Wolpin, the 3rd string walk-on running back finished the game with 90 yards, nearly 3 times as many yards as the entire NIU team. WHAAAA???!!! Yup, and it was glorious.

Alex Ogle announced his intentions of transferring to Arizona Western today via Twitter. His reasoning is sound, but it leaves us very light on quarterbacks. I did a brief walk-through of the quarterback situation back at the beginning of December and had thought that MAYBE Finley might transfer, but there is a lot still up in the air. While he didn't play amazing, he wasn't abysmal. I don't see Finley winning back the starting job from Rypien next year, but his competition thinned out. I don't see Stuart transferring as he has carved himself a nice spot as our running QB. Micah Wilson will most likely red-shirt, but with the loss of Ogle, that leaves us with 3 scholarship QBs. Do they snag a JC QB for the 2015 class? Do they give a scholly to Collingham or Upshaw? I think the former is more likely than the latter, but it will strictly be to fill the gaps in the classes.

Kellen also got his first start today. It wasn't stellar, and I don't think any reasonable fans would deny that, but I don't necessarily put that on him. Dez Bryant was out and the team was just banged up in general. It was a great learning experience for him.

All right, let's get back to recruiting. We are in a dead period until the beginning of January, so we won't be hearing a ton of recruiting news outside of what players say themselves. There are a lot of spots still needing to be filled up and lots of great options still out there. Last week we took a look at the RB position and how that will shake out next season. I think we will be in pretty dang good shape there. This week, we'll look at the TE position, which will also be loaded.

Currently, we have 8 TE on the roster:

Jake Hardee, RS Sr, 6'3 239lbs

Holden Huff, RS Sr, 6'6 226lbs

Jake Roh, RS Soph, 6'3 229lbs

Alec Dhaenens, RS Soph, 6'3 244lbs

Jake Knight, Soph, 6'4 230lbs

David Lucero, RS Frosh, 6'5 230lbs

Chase Blakley, RS Frosh, 6'4 235lbs

Matt Pistone, Frosh, 6'3 242lbs

This year, we lose Jake Hardee and Holden Huff. Both great players and they will be sorely missed. Hardee was a solid blocking tight end and Huff was a big bodied catcher. Huff started hot, but didn't ever bounce back after an injury his sophomore year. He made some solid contributions this season, as did Hardee, but not quite what I had expected in his career.

Jake Roh, on the other hand, has been a huge target in the passing game for us the last few seasons. And, with 2 years still left to play, we will get a lot more from him. Jake was already in a starting role and will continue to be there. Dhaenens saw some limited time on the field this season, but I expect to see more from him in 2016. Jake Knight was a former Rocky Mountain player locally that had originally committed to Oregon State, but ended up at Auburn for shot put. After an admirable season there, he felt the pull from football and headed back home. I believe he didn't play because of transfer rules, but I could be wrong. That may not apply from one sport to the other, but my guess is it does. I would expect we see Jake on the field this season, but I don't know how much or in what capacity. He was highly touted coming out of high school, but I have no idea if that year off will affect him.

Chase Blakley suffered a torn achilles prior to the first game. I'm not sure if he is eligible for a medical red shirt since he already used his red shirt season, but I certainly hope so. As a 4-star recruit, the Bronco faithful had high hopes for him. I'd love to see him catching all of the passes and destroying DBs next fall.David Lucero obviously may not end up with the team next season, but as I write this, he is still on the roster. I don't know the fill story behind the situation, but being arrested is never a good look. Hoping for the best in all respects in this situation. And finally, Matt Pistone could be a huge player for us. A formidable kid coming in, he is still enormous and one of the biggest TEs we have.

With Nick Crabtree coming in, who will be the biggest TE we have when he gets here, we have a glut of talent at the TE position. Outside of the two graduated TEs Hardee and Huff, the remaining were underclassmen this season. Roh and Dhaenens will be RS juniors and since Knight didn't see the field, he'll be a RS sophomore. We will be solid at TE for a while, if you ask me.

2016 Recruiting Class

We finally got senior highlights for Damarea Crockett, and boy were they worth the wait! If you have not yet seen them, just scroll down and play them over and over for a few hours. No seriously, do that.

Cedrick Wilson, WR, 6'3 190lbs

Joel Velaquez, K, 6'0 220lbs

Derriyon Shaw, DE, 6'3 220lbs

Ali'i Niumatalolo (2017 class), ILB, 6'1.5 230lbs

Nick Crabtree, TE, 6'6 247lbs

Damarea Crockett, RB, 5'11.5 211lbs

Tyson Maeva, ILB, 6'0 230lbs

Desmond Williams, S, 6'0 190lbs

Reid Harrison-Ducros, CB, 5'10 165lbs

Ezra Cleveland, OT, 6'6 270lbs

Julian Carter, WR, 6'2 175lbs

Robert Mahone, RB, 5'11 190lbs

Kole Bailey, OT, 6'4.5 285lbs

Robert Lewis, CD, 5'10 170lbs

Chase Hatada, DT, 6'2.5 255lbs

Micah Wilson, QB, 6'3 200lbs

Daniel Auelua, DT, 6'2 285lbs