ASU Football: 2010 Signing Day Class Flashback

In February 2010, ASU Head Coach Dennis Erickson signed a full class of 26 players to join the Sun Devil football program. Overall, Erickson’s second from last recruiting class did not grade well. Scout.com ranked it 26th overall and 6th best in the Pac-10 conference, and Rivals.com ranked ASU 35th overall and 8th best in the Pac-10 conference.

Reviewing the three major scouting websites (Scout, Rivals, ESPN) and their rankings, several players were given star rankings greater than three. Deantre Lewis, George Bell, Eddie Elder, and Brice Schwab received four stars from Scout. Lewis, Bell, Schwab, Josh Fulton, and Junior Onyeali received four stars from Rivals, but no recruit received four stars from ESPN.

Signing Day rankings are simply a college football fan’s major discussion point from the end of the BCS Championship game until the first day of spring practice. All initial Signing Day rankings are simply an early evaluation of the potential for an individual prospect and the class overall. A true class ranking and evaluation can only be measured after their time in Tempe.

The 2010 class included six JC players: George Bell, Mike Willie, Brice Schwab, Eddie Elder, Aderious Simmons, and Chris De Armas.

The 2010 class included 20 high school players which can be split into two groups. “Group A” consists of Taylor Kelly, Carl Bradford, Alden Darby, Junior Onyeali, Jamil Douglas, Deantre Lewis, Tyler Sulka, Kyle Middlebrooks, and Sil Ajawara. “Group B” members include Jordan McDonald, Devan Spann, Joita Te’i, Kevin Anderson, Randy Knust, Lee Adams, Ramon Abreu, Josh Fulton, Damian Williams, Taylor Walstad, and Calvin Tonga.

There is a reason that most ASU fans haven’t heard of the players in “Group B”. None of those eleven players are with the program. Just three years later, only one-third of the 2010 class remains in the Sun Devil program for Todd Graham and his coaching staff. That is an amazingly low number of players for a class. While several players from this 2010 class are key performers, the overall small amount of players on the roster is extremely detrimental to the depth and success of the entire Sun Devil program.

Obviously, toward the end of his time at ASU, Dennis Erickson and his staff were ineffective in the recruiting department. The ineffective recruiting was one major factor into Erickson leaving Tempe. Looking back at this 2010 Signing Day class, this is a major reason as to why current Coach Graham had to use 10 scholarships from his 2013 class on JC players. This 2010 class is now supplemented with JC players Joe Morris, De’Marieya Nelson, Marcus Hardison, Demetrius Cherry, Eriquel Florence, and Damarious Randall. These new Sun Devils fill in the holes left by the “Group B” departures from the 2010 Signing Day class.