By Thomas Corhern, TTU Sports Information
COOKEVILLE, Tenn. – The Tennessee Tech football coaches already knew the 2019 signing class was a special one as they inked 26 players in December and last week.
But the staff got some justification on Monday just how special the signing class is as HERO Sports ranked Tech's class as the second best in the Ohio Valley Conference with the 32nd best class in the Football Championship Subdivision and three signees among the top 300 ranked.
"That's huge for this program," said Tech head coach Dewayne Alexander. "I think it reiterates that people believe in what we're doing. We have good relationships with our coaches – we didn't really have to establish them, we already had them. We have good relationships with what we call the 'R-250,' the 250-mile radius that our university recognizes.
"Having a whole year under our belts really allowed us to identify the players we needed and I certainly felt like we could go head-to-head with people and recruit. People really weren't caught up with the past few years at Tennessee Tech. I think they're really excited about being a part of the future at Tennessee Tech. They're not coming to play on the 2016, 2017 or 2018 teams, they're coming to play on the 2019, 2020, 2021 teams."
But the biggest selling point has been what the Tech experience will be.
"Parents, recruits and coaches all feel very good about what is going on here, the program on and off the field, and they know that we are going to develop young men and this will be a place they will be proud to be at," Alexander said. "I've been a high school coach for many years and I wanted my players to go somewhere they would have a good experience and for someone who would have their best interests at heart as a person. There's sincerity to that and people feel that. I'm very proud of our staff and the work they did. I'm very proud of the current players on our team – they were a huge selling point with this class. It was the combination of a lot of things to put that all together."
It has almost been a grassroots movement in putting the squad together, building from the ground up to set the stage for the future.
"We used our connections with former Tennessee Tech players who are now coaches out there," Alexander said. "They landed us two big recruits. Bert Browne was the coach at Elbert County (Ga.) when Metrius Fleming was there and that was a very big wide receiver get for us. Shane Queen was the coach at North Cobb and Michael Dixon had multiple FBS offers. When Michael's recruiting started to waver a little bit, he gave us a call. He picked up the phone and called his alma mater and said, 'Hey, coach, you really need to take a look at this kid,' and I did."
HERO Sports ranked the top 10 FCS signing classes as Harvard, Villanova, Stephen F. Austin, North Dakota State, Northern Iowa, Yale, Princeton, James Madison, Delaware and Western Carolina. Jacksonville State at No. 18 was the top OVC signing class in the site's rankings, while Eastern Kentucky (No. 33), Murray State (No. 34) and UT Martin (No. 44) were also among the Top 50.
Wide receiver Justin Oden out of Spring Hill High School was named the No. 4 FCS signee out of the 2019 class. According to Rivals.com, Oden had offers from Kentucky, LSU, Memphis, Ole Miss, Rutgers, Tennessee and Vanderbilt. As a senior, he caught 16 passes for 195 yards and no touchdowns while playing for a run-heavy offense. The year earlier, he caught 27 passes for 477 yards and six touchdowns. He was slated to go to Louisville, but the plan changed.
"You look back at the history of Tennessee Tech, and I've kept pretty close tabs on the program over the last 30 years, with all of the All-Americans we've had, there's always a great recruiting story," Alexander said. "Justin's one of those. He got caught up in the early signing day last year being a basketball player. He wasn't able to take some of those early visits and there was a coaching change.
"All of those things factored in to where he's available. He's an FBS talent that got caught up in the recruiting game, so to speak. He ended up with nowhere to go. He's a quality young man with a good family, but was looking for an opportunity to go somewhere and play."
Enter once again the Tech relationship factor.
"We knew people he knew, he knew people we knew and once we met and had a chance to visit, we really hit it off with him and his family," Alexander said. "His mother felt very comfortable. She said they had been through the whole FBS ordeal and kind of got left hanging out. She wanted him to go somewhere he get his education paid for and get to play college football.
"It was a really neat story and we were really at the right place at the right time. That worked out really good for us."
Defensive lineman Michael Dixon from North Cobb HS was ranked No. 239 and defensive back Jamaal Singleton from Buford, Ga., was No. 244. Dixon had Football Bowl Subdivision offers from Appalachian State, Ball State and Georgia Southern, according to 247Sports.com, while Singleton had FBS offers from Arkansas State, Army and Kent State.
"Those guys are excellent players and played for excellent coaches," Alexander said. "John Ford had been the coach at Buford High and I've known him for a long time. Michael had committed to an FBS school and sometimes they have coaching changes and those scholarship offers sometimes aren't there anymore. It's fluid.
"We had numerous guys that had offers to other schools that were probably deserving to be among those Top 300 signees. Our league does a tremendous job in recruiting. For us to be just behind Jacksonville State, who's continuously one of the top teams in the league and have such a high profile, we're excited to be in that mix."
Now, the objective is to keep these highly-ranked classes coming.
"The key to this is stringing these recruiting classes together," Alexander said. If we back them up and go back-to-back-to-back, that will be tremendous. One of the biggest factors is the stability on our coaching staff. We have almost the entire staff back, losing just one coach and we lost him after the early signing period. That is key.
"You get consistent communication and guys that know the area. If you have multiple coaching changes, your recruiting is going to be affected. That puts a new guy in where you could have had a guy working for months, then you have to cover for it and you're just not in tune with what's going on in those areas. The stability really helped with this class."
The Golden Eagles open the 2019 campaign on Aug. 31 as Tech hosts Samford.
Season tickets are now on sale for Tech football. For more information, call (931) 372-3940, visit the Hooper Eblen Center ticket office or visit TTUsports.com.
