HARRISONBURG — About two weeks ago, Mike Houston hinted at a possible dilemma his James Madison football program might have leading into National Signing Day.
“The thing we’re finding on the recruiting trail is that a lot of kids want to be at JMU,” Houston said. “We have more quality kids that want to be here than we have scholarships. It’s a good problem to have.”
Today is National Signing Day and over the last month JMU has capitalized on its FCS national championship win to finish its 2017 recruiting class strong. National letters of intent will begin to roll into the Athletic Performance Center at Bridgeforth Stadium at 7 a.m.
“We’ve got some mid-year enrollees that have already started school,” JMU recruiting coordinator Dale Steele said last week. “Then we got the group that’s coming in and then we have a few that we’re on the fence about [and] that are on the fence about us. But the class has pretty much shaped up as we thought it would.”
One prospect of the group Houston, Steele and company had been waiting on might have included Benedictine School (Richmond) cornerback Taurus Carroll. Coaches can’t comment on prospects until they sign.
The 5-foot-11 defender pledged his verbal commitment to JMU on Friday.
“The playoff game against Sam Houston State opened my eyes about how good they really were,” Carroll said. “But they have a good education and they have a good football team — a great football team — having won the national championship.”
Maryland and Toledo offered Carroll when he was a junior playing at Fork Union, but coaching changes at both programs deterred him from the Terrapins and the Rockets. Maryland fired Randy Edsall during the 2015 season and hired D.J. Durkin last winter. Matt Campbell left Toledo for the head gig at Iowa State during the same offseason.
Coincidentally, it was a coaching change at Madison that led Carroll to commit to JMU.
Carroll said he had a prior relationship with JMU defensive coordinator Bob Trott, who tried to recruit Carroll to Richmond when he worked there.
“I hadn’t really talked to Richmond since,” Carroll said.
Carroll said he spoke with Trott during his recruitment to JMU, but that his lead recruiters were defensive line coach Jeff Hanson and cornerbacks coach Tripp Weaver.
Since Carroll made his decision, JMU has picked up verbal commitments from Hickory High School (Chesapeake) punter Tommy Martin and Timber Creek (Sicklerville, N.J.) wide receiver Ezrah Archie. Both players announced their commitments on Twitter.
Chris Sailer Kicking rates Martin as the third-best punter prospect nationally. Archie had offers from 11 FCS schools including JMU’s CAA foes Elon and New Hampshire.
Two days before Carroll committed, JMU also locked in a preferred walk-on commitment in defensive tackle Semaj Sorhaindo from Courtland High School (Spotsylvania).
“Coach Trott has a lot of faith in me,” Sorhaindo said. “He told me that they’d love to have me on the team, but that they just didn’t have enough scholarships. He wanted me to walk-on and he was sincere about it, so since I loved the school, when he asked ‘Do you want a spot on the roster?’ I took it immediately.”
Sorhaindo, who said he plans to major in kinesiology, had programs such as Cornell, Georgetown, Harvard, Howard, Villanova and Yale recruiting him.
“My path will be a little tougher, but that’s OK,” he said. “There are always really good walk-ons. [JMU tight end Jonathan] Kloosterman was a walk-on. I can always work hard, grind and earn a scholarship later on down the road.”
Oakdale High School (Ijamsville, Md.) running back Percy Agyei-Obese, who’s been committed to JMU since the summer, said he’s enjoyed seeing the coaches put the finishing touches on the class.
“This is class is going to something special,” Agyei-Obese said. “I saw some of the players on my official visit and all of the commits, we have a group chat together and I can just tell that it’ll be special.”