Safety valve

The term pipeline in NCAA recruiting refers to a school/part of the country that a college seems to mine for prospects and does so successfully. Due to NCAA restrictions, college coaches are unable to contact prospects at will through most of the year and must rely on the high school coach to pass along information and find out how the student athlete is doing. The trust between the two can make or break the deal for many players.

BYU has been effectively recruiting from Timpview High school in Provo and Kahuku in Hawaii.

2007: 3 Timpview and 1 Kahuku.
2008: 2 Timpview and 1 Kahuku.
2009: 1 Timpview and 1 Kahuku.

From 2007-2009, BYU will get a safety every year from Kahuku, the powerhouse of Hawaii.

The latest additions, one in 2008 and one in 2009, both come from one of these schools.

Craig Bills (6'2 202) recently committed for the class of 2009. This now brings the tally up to 3, the same number as the second best MWC team has for 2008. Bills, who plays for Timpview, is the only sophomore in the state of Utah to be All-State, with 84 tackles, 6 interceptions and 10 pass deflections. This kid is special and comes from a great BYU football family, his older brother KC played for BYU, Kelly is on the roster at DB, and Kevin just committed to BYU a couple weeks ago at DE. He wants to continue playing safety, but if he bulks up too much more he may have to move to OLB.

The other new recruit is one I have been watching for several months. Shiloah Te'o (5'11, 190, 4.5) is a great prospect out of Kahuku and one tough safety. He and Sorensen are both dominating safeties and will have the opportunity to fight for time as freshman as the top 4 safeties graduate after this season. Shiloah, an amazing get on his own, will also help BYU in recruiting one of the best players out of Hawaii..ever. Manti Te'o, his cousin, already holds offers from USC, ND, UCLA, etc.

Watch Shiloah knock kids silly here.*

My 3 Cents: BYU is loading up at Safety, and some people are wondering if BYU is headed back towards a 3-3-5. I highly doubt it, I think BYU is just working to fill in gaps that are being created, not changing the alignment.

*The highlight video is non-YouTube for the poor BYU students who are blocked from it.