Recruiting revolving door hits Cougs

PULLMAN – When Dennis Erickson stepped onto a private plane headed from Pullman-Moscow Regional Airport to Arizona, few could have guessed that the coach’s decision to ditch his Idaho coaching job for the same position at Arizona State would have affected Washington State all that much.

Now that national letter of intent day has arrived, though, the classes announced by both Erickson in Tempe and WSU head coach Bill Doba in Pullman will look different than they might have had the job shuffle never taken place.

Luis Vasquez, a highly regarded defensive end who has spent the last two seasons at Arizona Western Junior College, was once set to be the Cougars’ most prized recruit of this class. Terry Mixon, a cornerback who has been a junior college All-American at Grossmont College in California, was set to be one of Arizona State’s most prized recruits.

But, as coaches are often quick to remind, nothing in recruiting is etched in stone until a signed letter of intent arrives. Doba is expected to announce a class of 24 recruits today, two of whom already signed in December.

Mixon had committed to Arizona State when the Sun Devils were still under the watch of Dirk Koetter, who was told of his firing near the conclusion of the 2006 regular season. That coaching change prompted the cornerback, whose older brother was recently a starter at the same position for California, to take another look.

Today, Mixon is set to sign with Washington State.

“He’s a nice kid and he had a hard time saying no, I’m sure,” Grossmont College coach Mike Jordan said. “He’s a freak. He can play corner, he can play safety, he can probably play outside backer. He’s fast and has a real good nose for the ball. He’ll hit you real hard.”

Vasquez, meanwhile, had long been the apple of WSU’s eye. Doba went so far as to visit the defensive end’s father in Connecticut, and the Vasquezes’ commitment to the Cougars appeared to be as solid as could be.

But then, on the first day he was eligible to sign a letter of intent in December – Vasquez finished junior college early and was therefore able to sign at an earlier date – WSU defensive coordinator Robb Akey took Erickson’s old job at Idaho.

Akey had been Vasquez’s primary recruiter and would have been his position coach at WSU. Shaken by the change, the defensive end sought out the other schools that had recruited him and shortly ended up signing a letter of intent with Erickson at Arizona State.

“What’s a tough thing about this business is that it is a big-boy business from that standpoint,” Arizona Western coach James Pryor said. “To be honest with you, when he changed his mind on the commitment, man it was tough. I felt bad for the guys at Washington State because they did a great job.”

Mixon and Vasquez aren’t the only two players to change their minds. More recently, WSU lost a commitment in the final week before signing day to USC.

“I think it surprised everybody,” Pryor said of Vasquez’s switch.

That emotion, it seems, is the one bond that unites all of recruiting season, right up to this last day.