JMU Lands Indiana All-State QB
HARRISONBURG – There are parallels between where Kyle Adams will leave and where he will go to continue his football career.
The West Lafayette (Ind.) quarterback committed to James Madison on Tuesday, joining the Dukes’ 2020 recruiting class.
“It’s what we are here in West Lafayette,” Adams said. “We’re a football town. All we want to do is win. We went 15-0 last year and won a state championship, so the community really embraces football and everyone shows out on Friday nights. And I got that same feeling when I went there to JMU. It’s a different level and something special is going on there.”
JMU won its last FCS national championship in 2016, but played in the title game in 2017 and has appeared in five straight postseasons.
Adams said he wanted to play for a winner and that the Dukes began their serious pursuit of him early last month following his first visit to Harrisonburg.
JMU coach Curt Cignetti and offensive coordinator Shane Montgomery, who is also the team’s quarterbacks coach, paired up to land the Indiana Football Coaches Association Class 3A All-State selection.
“It’s awesome to have a head coach and an offensive coordinator that are willing to work hand-in-hand,” Adams said. “They have two offensive masterminds working together to reach the same goal and that’s hard to stop. That’s the one thing that caught my attention.
“I love them both and my immediate reaction after meeting them was, ‘These are guys I would really like to play for.’ That’s the thing that caught me and in making this decision, I wanted to play for people I enjoy being around because this is the next four years of my life.”
Adams had plenty of other options, too. He said Bryant, Furman, Indiana State, Morehead State, Southeast Missouri State, Southern Illinois, Western Illinois, Wofford and two Division II schools all offered him before Cignetti pulled the trigger last month after Adams’ second visit to JMU, where he threw in front of Cignetti and Montgomery.
“They wanted to see me live,” Adams said. “And that’s typical for most quarterbacks before they make an offer and that’s when things took off.
“I felt like I threw great.”
On the heels of throwing for 3,945 yards and 47 touchdowns while completing 70 percent of his passes and winning a state title as a junior, Adams found the right fit for his future.
He said the system Cignetti and Montgomery are using at JMU is very similar to what he plays in at West Lafayette.
“We had a nice 30-minute-to-an-hour conversation about their offense,” Adams said. “And it was funny when I was talking to [Montgomery] because it was exactly what we do at home.
“We’re up-tempo and move the ball downfield. We take what the defense gives us. If they’re going to let us run the ball, we’re going to run it. If they’re going to let us pass the ball, we’re going to pass it. We’re going to get the ball into the athletes’ hands and let them do their thing. And I love the [run-pass option] he’s utilizing, too. That’s something I’ve been doing at the high school level for the past two years.”
Adams said in West Lafayette’s 47-42 state championship game win over Evansville Memorial, all he did was take what the defense gave him. He threw for a 3A state finals record 466 yards and four touchdowns in that contest at Lucas Oil Stadium.
The 6-foot, 178-pound quarterback added it helped him in his decision-making process that he had a teammate with a strong connection to Montgomery. Former West Lafayette receiver, Kyle Hazell, who now plays for the University of Dayton, is the son of former Purdue coach Darrell Hazell. The older Hazell and Montgomery know each other.
“Coach Hazell knows Coach Montgomery really well, so that helped a lot, too,” Adams said. “They coached together and know each other really well and so having that connection was great because it’s another person who could say, ‘JMU has a great staff there.’”
As far as the current Purdue staff, Adams said the Boilermakers know who he is since he plays in the same town Purdue is located in and that he has a good relationship with quarterbacks coach Brian Brohm, but that he’s probably not big enough to play in the Big 10.
Adams is the fourth prospect to commit to JMU within the last month, and when he signs, he’ll officially be the first quarterback the Dukes have inked since Gage Moloney in the 2017 class. In the most recent recruiting cycle, Cignetti made a late push for Rome (Ga.) quarterback Knox Kadum and Kadum committed, but eventually flipped to Virginia Tech in time for signing day.
When Adams arrives for the 2020 season, he’s slated to be one of three scholarship quarterbacks on the roster along with Moloney and Cole Johnson.
“That was one of the factors,” Adams said. “I wanted to come in and compete and that’s what Coach Cignetti and Coach Montgomery both told me upfront. They said, ‘This is a great position for whatever 2020 quarterback we take because we expect for them to come in and compete Day 1.’”