2017 football recruiting class brings top-tier talent to UTSA

UTSA Head Football Coach Frank Wilson announces the 2017 recruiting class.
Photo courtesy: Jeff Huehn, UTSA Athletics

(Feb. 2, 2017) -- Roadrunners Football, coming off its most successful season in program history, has signed a talented crop of new players to its roster. Today Head Football Coach Frank Wilson announced the 23 highly decorated student-athletes who will join the UTSA Football program for the upcoming 2017 season.

Future Roadrunners who signed national letters of intent today include:

Samuel Barnes (Richmond, Texas/George Ranch HS), B.J. Daniels (Melbourne, Fla./Palm Bay HS), Kevin Davis (Angleton, Texas/Angleton HS), Robert Fuentes (San Antonio, Texas/Southwest HS), Michael Goff (San Antonio, Texas/Johnson HS), De'Marco Guidry (La Marque, Texas/La Marque HS), Frank Harris (Schertz, Texas/Clemens HS), Jaylon Haynes (Wharton, Texas/Wharton HS), Morris Joseph Jr. (Orange, Texas/West Orange-Stark HS), Chance McLeod (Victoria, Texas/East HS), Javontavius Mosley (Tyler, Texas/John Tyler HS), Dominic Pastucci (Pflugerville, Texas/Hendrickson HS), Donovan Perkins (Zachary, La./Zachary HS), Tay'lor Perry (Crosby, Texas/Crosby HS), Keeyon Smart (Baton Rouge, La./McKinley HS/Kilgore [Texas] JC), Dadrian Taylor (Shiner, Texas/Shiner HS), Vance Vallair (Beaumont, Texas/Central HS) and Tariq Woolen (Fort Worth, Texas/Arlington Heights HS).

Josh Dunlop (Zionsville, Ind./Zionsville Community HS/Dodge City [Kan.] CC) and Robert Ursua (Bakersfield, Calif./Liberty HS/Palomar [Calif.] JC) inked National Letters of Intent in December and Bryce Rivers (San Antonio, Texas/Stevens HS) signed a financial aid agreement last November, and all three already are attending classes at UTSA this spring.

Meanwhile, Michael Moore (Escondido, Calif./Escondido HS/Palomar [Calif.] JC) and Jay Jay Smith (Gulfport, Miss./Gulfport HS/Mississippi Gulf Coast JC) inked their NLIs back in December, but the pair is not enrolled at UTSA this semester.

"I am very proud of the class we were able to sign," Wilson said. "We feel very good about this group. We know them best as people, as students and as athletes because we've put in the time and the effort to recognize who they are.

When you reflect back on it, we've recruited nearly all of these young men for 12 months. This all started last January when we went out to the schools and started identifying them. It's rewarding to look back at the entire process and that's a credit to the hard work put in by our entire staff. It all comes full circle to this day and that's a testament of the things we talk about, building relationships that will stand the test of time."

Elevent members of the class are all-state performers, while 13 earned all-area, all-region, all-county or all-metro accolades. All 23 were named all-district or all-conference.

"Every opportunity," Wilson said, "whether it was last fall, last spring, summer camp, junior day, the contact period, those relationships we built allowed us to hold off some other schools that were trying to compete with us and pry our quality prospects away from us. It all goes back to being diligent in the process of doing things the right way.

We're very fortunate to have the best recruiting class in UTSA history and one of the best, in our opinion, in our conference's recent history. We feel very confident that with this team and this group of young men coming in that we're on the right path to achieve our goal to win a conference championship."

The class features 16 players from the state of Texas, two each from California and Louisiana as well as one from the states of Florida, Indiana and Mississippi.

Of the 16 players from the Lone Star State, five each are from the Greater San Antonio and Greater Houston areas, a pair are from the Golden Triangle, while one each are from Austin, the Coastal Bend, the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex and East Texas.

Twelve of the players will suit up for the offense (2 QB, 1 RB, 2 WR, 3 TE, 4 OL), while 11 are slated to be on the defensive side of the ball (1 DL, 2 DE, 2 LB, 5 CB, 1 S).

"I just want to extend a tremendous thank you to the administrators, coaching staffs and parents of all these young men throughout this process for welcoming us with open arms," Wilson said. "On Tuesday, we picked up the phone and we called the high school coach of every young man that committed to us, and we thanked them for allowing us to come into their schools and meet with them. We told them that we would deliver on a promise that their young men would be everything that they set out to be — to graduate and have a degree; to be developed; to maximize playing potential. We always talk about the full measure of success — the degree and the championship go hand in hand, and one without the other is not good enough."

The Roadrunners will begin spring practice in March. UTSA will open its seventh season of play on Saturday, Sept. 2 at the Alamodome against Houston.

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