Maryland Grabs 18th Commitment: OT Jake Wheeler

Maryland picked up another commitment yesterday in Florida offensive tackle (tight end?) Jake Wheeler. InsideMDSports has the news on Twitter, as uninformative as it may be - the only thing it implies is that it's definitely a football commitment, which would come in handy (see below).

None of the three main recruiting sites have him in their databases, so I'm not sure how good he is or how good of a pickup this is. He epitomizes an unknown sleeper. In fact, I found more stuff on basketball than football for him, including a highlight tape, which shows off his athleticism. Actually, he plays for American Heritage, a pretty damn good team that last year included Kenny Boynton, easily a top twenty player in the country. His tape is moderately impressive - maybe he could fill in if Maryland happened to need a big man down the road.

MaxPreps lists him at 6-8, 245 while the video me, which, when combined with his apparent athleticism - if the basketball tape is any measure, that is - makes one think he might be more of a tight end than a tackle. Transitioning from PF to TE is a pretty natural move (just ask Antonio Gates) and he'd have to put on a lot of weight to measure up to tackle standards.

There's another plus: he's from Florida. I'm not saying we should pluck every Floridian we can find, but it's no secret that state puts out a lot of talent, and a two star player there would probably be considered three stars if he was from Maryland. Getting a presence down there can never be a bad thing.

When we hear more in terms of evaluation, so will you.

Now, that's 18 commitments for Maryland, so I'm asuming they'll take anywhere between one and three more, depending on who they can get. That's also four OL: looks like the staff learned their lesson on that end. Wheeler provides some good versatility, too, considering he could move over to TE if need be. "Need be", in this case, would probably be Arie Kouandjio committing, which seems nigh-impossible at this point. Otherwise, I'm not sure they'd be taking this many commitments at the same position.

Football recruiting should be finishing up within the next month. Land Brandon Coleman or Tony Grimes, I'll be content. Land Brandon Coleman and Tony Grimes, and someone on the staff is a magician.