Two More Recruits Aboard For Growing South Dakota St. Class

South Dakota State has proven it can play with anybody. FBS opponent? Bring it on. Missouri Valley Conference’s finest? We’re glad to have you. Non-conference game with a Big Sky power? No sweat.

On and on, the Jackrabbits’ recipe for success–the GoJacks special sauce–works. With four straight seasons of 8 wins or more, long-time successful coach John Stiegelmeier has this program in a good place in a challenging conference. And the recruits are eating up the message. When talking to HERO Sports earlier this year, Coach Stig obviously wouldn’t talk about the specifics of which kids he and his staff were pursuing–which would violate NCAA regs–but he talked about the general philosophy behind who they pursue. He said they loved getting the midwestern kid who was willing to buy in to what they do, and they had a special place they liked to go for a bonus recruit or two–and it’s not the national hotbeds of Florida, Texas or California.

“Arizona,” Stig told HERO Sports. “We always seem to do well in Arizona. It’s been kind to us.”

And sure enough, 3-star athlete Jacob Brown in this upcoming year’s signing class is from Phoenix. He’s a 6-foot-1, 190 pound speedster. Nebraska has also been an SDSU hotbed, traditionally. Six of this year’s 14 commitments are from the Cornhusker state.

The big recruiting news this week is the additions of 6-foot-6 do-everything athlete Paddy Devlin out of Chicago and WR Cade Johnson out of Nebraska.

“I like all the talent they are bringing in,” Johnson told HERO Sports after committing. “A lot of top players are from the midwest and it’s very exciting. I think we can get SDSU over the hump. It is definitely a good time to come in.”

So what do their fellow commitments think of the additions? We’ll start off by letting their future QB Alec Cromer–a 6-foot-5 three-star talent who could end up throwing balls to both Devlin and Johnson–explain. Cromer is even one step ahead–he knows Johnson because they’re both from the same state.

“Any time you can get a receiver like Cade, who is quick, athletic and is a ball hawk, it can cause problems for defenses,” Cromer told HERO Sports this week. “He’s a great player. It is looking better every day.”

Also chiming in was 3-star DB Josh Manchigiah out of Papillion, Neb. The service academies have offered him a chance to play on TV every week and play in bowl games, and Iowa is still looking hard at him, but he loves what he sees with SDSU.

“I’m pumped about the class especially now that my friend Cade committed,” Manchigiah told HERO Sports. ” I know all the guys from Nebraska and I think the tide will turn our way and we’ll make some championship runs.”

Below is a list of the 14 known South Dakota State commitments (special thanks to SDSUfans.com’s outstanding site, as three of the below commitments we didn’t previously know about).