National Signing Day is starting to wind down. Most of the big ceremonies have happened and major recruits have announced their college of choice. As of 2pm, all of the expected LOI's have been received by the coaching staff. Three letters remain outstanding from verbal commits. As posted earlier; Priest Willis will sign his LOI tomorrow, Mossi Johnson is coming in as a greyshirt in the 2014 Winter Quarter, and Craig Lee has some academic issues to take care of before he can officially come into the fold.
Earlier today, the Arizona commits - Kenny Lacy, Jalen Ortiz and Priest Willis - appeared at an Arizona signing ceremony, joined be the families of some of our current Arizona-native players. There were 8-claps to be had.
UCLA crew celebrating at "Decision Day 2013" in Phoenix, AZ. Bruin fans, check them out:yfrog.com/gvq57kydzubmll…
— Inna Lazarev (@InnaLazarev) February 6, 2013
At the moment, UCLA's recruiting class is ranked #4 nationally by Scout.com, and #9 by Rivals.com.
Taylor Mazzone talks to Ralph Irvin about his promotion and his work in bringing Thomas Duarte and Asiantii Woulard to Westwood. Asiantii talked with ESPN just after announcing his commitment to UCLA.
There are still a pair of recruits for us to watch out for this afternoon. Cameron Judge, a 'soft verbal' commit to the Bruins will be making his public commitment announcement at 3pm on Fox Sports West's Signing Day show (The show is being streamed via the network's website). It is simply an announcement, as Cameron has signed his LOI at his school this morning and sent it to the school that he will be attending. He requested that his choice be kept under wraps until his TV appearance. Coaches have honored the request, but not all members of the media have done so.
The big announcement of the evening will be that of Eddie Vanderdoes at 5pm. Today's tea leaves have been pointing to a Notre Dame commitment, but with recruiting, who really knows until the LOI is signed and faxed. Eddie would make this an epic recruiting class, but with or without him, the coaches have put together a great class that is set to fill in holes on the roster and give a general talent boost to the program.
Coach Mora will hold a press conference beginning at 5:15pm to discuss the signing class. He can only talk about players who have signed with UCLA at that point, so do not expect anything about Priest Willis or Craig Lee, nor about any recruits that decided to commit to other schools. All of the coaches will appear at the public Signing Day ceremony at Pauley Pavilion tonight at 7:30pm. We will post streaming links to these events if and when they become available.
But as much work as Coach Mora has put into building relationships and bringing in this recruiting class, there is one college commit in particular at the top of his list.
My #1 commit, Cole Mora to Claremont McKenna to play Soccer...congrats!#uclasigningday twitter.com/UCLACoachMora/…
— Jim Mora (@UCLACoachMora) February 6, 2013
Congrats to Cole, Jim and the entire Mora family!
This should go without saying in this group, but just putting it out there. Please be respectful to these kids on social media, whether they choose to come to UCLA or to go elsewhere. There have been some fans of other schools and teams the past few days that have taken to tweeting insults and other derogatory statements at recruits that don't pick their school. Don't be that guy (or gal). As Inna Lazarev tweeted:
Cheer, celebrate, pound a beer (or 7), but just remember these are 17 yr olds making personal decisions. So please, leave the kids alone :)
— Inna Lazarev (@InnaLazarev) February 6, 2013
This is your Signing Day Evening open thread.
GO BRUINS!