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2004 MAC Football Recruiting - Kent State Flashes

Overview

Kent State brought in the smallest class this year in the MAC, in terms of the number of players signed.  Last year KSU brought in a ton of players, 31 to be exact, and since the NCAA max is 25, three of those players counted for 2002 while three others count towards 2004.  The Flashes used their open slots wisely to fill holes, most notably the offensive and defensive lines.  The Golden Flashes also brought in four LB prospects.  Two high school teammates from Dover, Ohio highlight this class, OL Shawn Donaldson, a top-30 recruit in the state, and LB David Filippi, a tackling machine.  Five players from this class come from Ohio, with two each coming from Pennsylvania, Florida and Virginia.  KSU also continued their trend of bringing in players from Maryland and Florida.

Highlights

• The defensive line brought in some real nice players who bring immediate size and talent to the interior DT area.  Phil McNeal from Warren Harding had a lot of looks by BCS schools, but fell off their radar screens due to his height of 5-11 300-pounds.  He is a force in the middle though.  Dalton Memel is a 6-4 295-pound play maker from West Virginia who was all-state and recorded 15 QB sacks last fall.
• The highest rated player for KSU this year was Cedrick Maxwell, a short but fast LB prospect who was rated the 18^th best player in Tampa.  Another Floridian, Fritz Jacques, is a big-hitting SS prospect.
• KSU did a nice job finding some big and strong OL prospects.  Donaldson hs been mentioned, but Travis McGraw may play this fall coming from a prep school while Dan Coleman 6-8 280 is more of a project who should be contributing in two or three years.
• The lone RB prospect brought in this year is Joshua Pastore from the Pittsburgh area.  He rushed for over 1,600 yards.  KSU did not bring in any QB prospects, which is surprising given the unknown status of Joshua Cribbs who is have legal problems and cannot practice with the team until everything is satisfied.  KSU still has one scholarship left if someone comes available to their liking.

Final Thoughts

This class rates as AVERAGE compared to the other MAC programs but it’s difficult to rate any class with so few players coming in much higher, since there are fewer players in this class who can make an impact.  The line prospects and LB prospects are very good and should help KSU in the future.  There was not a lot of skilled players added and what was added does not appear to be to the level of many of the other MAC programs.  Kent State needs better speed and it is difficult to tell at this point if they got it.  Given the size of the Kent’s class last year (31 members), that is the class that will make or break this program over the next few years.  This class did what it was supposed to do, fill in some much-needed gaps.

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