WKU Recruiting: Notebook — Jacksonville RB Decommits, Atkinson Update

A week from this past Wednesday marks the beginning of the Early Signing Period for high school football players across the nation in what…

A week from this past Wednesday marks the beginning of the Early Signing Period for high school football players across the nation in what will be the second year of early signing.

Last year, the Tops inked 13 players in the December NSD in what turned out to be the first and only early signing day for Mike Sanford.

This year is interesting — it’ll be the first recruiting class to come in since Tyson Helton was named head coach but he’ll be busy not trying to get his guys to sign but to keep Sanford’s guys to hold steady and to stay.

As it stands, by our count, the Tops have 14 players verbally committed, so the more that sign next week the better.

With the countdown officially on, let’s take a look at a couple of notes regarding players the Hilltoppers have their eye on.

Jennings decommits

This is something we overlooked in our first look at the Class of 2019 in the immediate aftermath of Helton’s hiring, but we have a third decommitment to tell you about.

Jacksonville running back Terrell Jennings, who committed back in June, decommitted in November.

The interesting thing about this decommitment is that it predates the Sanford firing. Who knows if the Tops are still on his radar (he hasn’t really indicated anything about a decision on his Twitter page) so I guess time will tell.

I liked what he showed in his tape, and if Helton can get him to re-commit, you wont hear me complain.

Four-start visit

On Thursday, Jody Demling of WKUInsider reported that four-star wide receiver (er, rather, a former four-star, if we’re being accurate) Manuel “Manny” Allen is in the midst of an official visit on the Hill.

Demling notes Allen has previously been committed to three different schools — USC, Nebraska and, most recently, Louisville — but for various reasons decommited (most recently from the Cardinals due to academic issues).

It sounds like WKU is in position to be right place, right tame, as Allen says he wants to not only sign in the early signing period next week, but enroll in January.

Allen said his academics are in order and he plans on signing next week and enrolling at a school in January. He was committed to USC when current WKU head coach Tyson Helton was on the staff and current WKU tight ends coach Richard Owens was on the staff at Louisville when the Cardinals’ were still in contact with Allen.

- Jody Demling of WKUInsider

Demling also quotes Allen as saying he’s “focused on no other school but Western Kentucky,” so it sounds like the Tops might get a bluechip player to add to the class of 2019.

247 says Allen has interest from Arkansas State, BYU, Cal, Colorado, Illinois, Notre Dame and Ole Miss, among other schools.

Atkinson seeing red

One of the decommitments we did tell you about in our first update several weeks ago was that of Stephone Atkinson, but his decommitment seemed to be more in the wake of Sanford’s firing than anything else.

But, WKU is very much on his radar and if I were a betting man, I’d say there’s a good chance he re-commits.

Atkinson also has “Western Kentucky University Commit” in his Twitter bio and has the promotional material WKU sent to him with his name on a nameplate as his header. It could mean nothing. Or it could mean he’ll be a Hilltopper come 2019.

What gives?

In the past, the two main recruiting services — Rivals and 247Sports — have been pretty consistent with their lists of commits for WKU. But that isn’t the case right now.

247 says the Tops have 11 commits, while Rivals says the list is at 15.

I…have no answer for why there’s the disparity.

For what it’s worth, our most recent count more closely aligns with Rivals than 247’s. By the latest Towel Rack count, WKU has 15 verbal commitments to the class of 2019.