HERO Sports brings you … the Top National Signee in the FCS …
{Chevy Chase from Christmas Vacation Drum-Roll please … Um … Drum-Roll?}
[divider]TOP CLASSES: The FCS Top 50 (coming soon)
TOP SIGNEES: The FCS Top 300 (coming soon)[divider]
Stephen F. Austin, under newly-hired (yet very successful at Texas A&M-Commerce in recent years) coach Colby Carthel, was able to land uber-talented defensive lineman Carl Williams. He's the cherry-on-top of a tremendous recruiting class that is getting a ton of national buzz not just from HERO Sports but from other media outlets.
Williams was committed to the SEC's Arkansas until recent months, and he held eight Power Five Conference scholarship offers prior to his commitment to the Razorbacks. Arizona, Kansas, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Ole Miss and TCU were the other P5s, and five other FBS schools also offered. Williams had a ton of opportunities to play P5 ball, but in the end, when the dust settled? He decided to keep it closer to his Lufkin, Texas home.
"SFA has something big coming its way," Williams told HERO Sports on Sunday night, after he was confirmed as the national No. 1. "They have new coaches and guys that love the game. It's awesome that we have the No. 1 recruiting class in the Southland … it's amazing. I can't wait to get started. This class is something special and we're building something special in this program. I believe in the vision that we are bringing something special home to East Texas."
FCS DECOMMITMENTS: How many changed schools in the past year? (coming soon)
Williams is indicative of how SFA finished down the stretch. The Lumberjacks struggled through a tough season last fall after an abrupt coaching change during the summer, but they also reside in a talent-rich area of the football "country", so a lot of territory can be made up quickly if the right things happen. From a recruiting standpoint? That territory "makeup" happened with SFA in the 2019 cycle. The program is a HERO Sports Top Five class, with incoming freshmen forming the backbone. Many Southland Conference programs take more seasoned junior college talent, but SFA is hellbent on doing it the old-fashioned four — or maybe five — year way.
"We met (Carl) in Lufkin (Texas) and we started building that relationship, giving him an opportunity to stay very close to home," Carthel told HERO Sports on Sunday. "We felt like with a new staff and vision for the program, we had a chance with him. Once he jumped on board? That helped our momentum snowball … You see the people who are successful in Division I and it's those who go heavy for the high school talent. We have a five-year contract and we're going to do that way.
"I think (SFA) is a powder keg program just fixing to blow up, and this class is a good spark. We've got some good kids coming to campus … We want to be the pride of East Texas … We want this to be more the norm than the exception, and we're hoping there are a lot more Carls out there to write about."
Former Oklahoma defensive lineman JaMarkus McFarland is also from Lufkin, Texas, so that obviously helped in the recruitment, Carthel told HERO Sports.
Keep an eye on the Lumberjacks going forward.[divider]
FCS RECRUITING BY THE NUMBERS: How many had P5 offers? FBS? How many are "six star" signees?
RECRUITING SCHEDULE: Conf. by Conf. – And The Grand Finale
FLASHBACK TO PAST CLASSES:
2018 Top 50 FCS Recruiting Classes
2017 Top 50 FCS Recruiting Classes
2016 Top 30 FCS Recruiting Classes
