Recruiting - more on new football recruits

These guys are real athetes. They are players and nice additions to our recruiting class for 2005. This class is shaping up quite nicely.

Well, here is what we know:

TODD WALKER
QB from Pflugerville Texas
6'1" 170lb
FAST - 4.36 in the 40.
Chose GT over Oklahoma, Texas Tech, Purdue and Texas A&M
Wants to be a QB. That was an important criteria for the schools that recruited him. He wants to play QB in college and develop in that position. For the Jackets, Walker was the only QB they were recruiting and had offered. He is a smart kid too, with close to a 4.0 GPA (weighted it is over 4.5). His junior year he threw for 832 yards, ran for 790 and had 17 TD's. His brother is a red-shirt frosh at Purdue and his father played TE at Texas Tech. He is ranked as the 97th best player in the nation by Rivals in their nationwide top 100. Ranked as the 30th best "athlete" (funny earlier in the year he was in the top 10). What's ironic is that he is in the nationwide top 100 but somehow he ends up #50 in the state of Texas. Shows you I have just spent too much time talking rankings. If you watched any of the video of Walker on the recruiting sites, what you saw was eye-opening. Fast and elusive and hard to tackle. It's going to be hard for Tech fans to watch him on the sidelines when you know he's the type player you just want to have on the field somewhere. But he is committing here because he wants to be a QB - period..... Here's mention of Walker from a TX site:

The top participant in the SQT at Round Rock will unquestionably be Pflugerville QB Todd Walker, who has blazing 4.35 speed and rushed for 1,567 yards and 22 TDs on just 176 carries last season. Through the air, Walker was 63-of-135 for 667 yards and 10 TDs, with 8 INTs.

Here's a review of his high school team....... Here, ESPN has him listed as the 8th best safety in the nation. Here's what his high school coach had to say about him:

"Todd's a top athlete, good work ethics, good in the classroom, a good kid period." - George Hermann, head football coach, Pflugerville.

TAALIB TUCKER
LB from East Point, GA
5'11.5", 233lb
Strong - 405lb bench press, 650lb squat
Taalib Tucker is a strong kid who plays linebacker. He chose GT over Florida, Ohio State, Clemson and Oklahoma. He was also getting calls from LSU, Miss.St, Mich and FSU. As a junior he had 96 tackles, 5 sacks, 2 ints. You may think that sounds average, but consider that those stats were compiled in 6 games, as he missed the first half of the season with a knee injury. Rivals lists him as the 57th best player in the state of Georgia. He is also fast, running a 4.87 in the 40 at one camp, which is respectable. He has been clocked in the 4.5 range before. Another recruit interested in architecture, which fits well at GT. He also happens to dabble in track, throwing the shot-put and discuss. This link shows he threw the discuss 105'2" to come in 3rd place at the meet....... This link shows he threw the shotput 42'11.5" - link here.

One of Taalib's cousins in Oklahoma football player Scoonie Penn. He also has a cousin who played hoops at Florida - Rasheed Al-Kaleem.

To see more about Taalib and some pictures - click here....... Here's a profile from the AJC...... Here's an insiders article.

On a side note, here is an interesting site showing the rank of various states and their production of Div I talent.