Recruiting on the South Plains | FS Austin Stewart

I'll admit that I'm a bit excited about the potential of Stewart and what he could bring to the team. In fact, I'm still trying to figure out, and maybe this is a futile thought, but I don't know why some players are offered while others are not. Stewart, CB Bruce Jones (he's the next profile) and WR Sadale Foster are the two that come to mind and they both seem really effective against their competition. I realize the competition is JUCO, but that has to be a bit better than high school and they're still playing well. Either way, I'm excited about what Stewart can bring.

The Measurables:

AUSTIN STEWART
Position: FS
DTN Profile
Video: Clip 1
Rivals 5.6
Scout
ESPN N/R
24/7 Sports N/A
Ht: 6'2" | Wt: 200 lbs | Forty: 4.45
JUCO: Pierce C.C. (Woodland Hills, CA)

The Player Speaks: LAJ's Don Williams spoke with Stewart, who jumped at the chance to play Division I football at Texas Tech:

"They were looking at him and they needed safeties, and that’s when I popped up," Stewart said. "They found me — a 6-2, 200 safety. They looked at my tape and fell in love. That’s how it started."

Williams talks a bit about Stewart's journey, which is that he originally signed with South Carolina State, but thought he was destined for bigger things. Thus, he asked for and received his release and transferred to L.A. Pierce C.C., which is the same college as Kassiem Everett. Since Stewart qualified out of high school, he could go to a JUCO, and then transfer, which means that Stewart has four years to play three years. That's good.

Offers and Rankings: Other than SMU, Texas Tech was the only other relatively major school to offer. New Mexico, New Mexico St., Florida International, Northern Colorado and Western Michigan round out his offer list, so that doesn't appear overly impressive. No rankings either.

The Video: Film don't lie. Go check it out on Hudl.

Scouting Report: For Pierce last year, Stewart registered 26 tackles, 1 interception and 1 pass break-up. But the film, which actually happened, seems to tell a different story. I want to back up a bit too as I think the reason he wasn't highly recruited in high school was that he was a 6-0/190 pound safety that ran a 4.6 40-yard dash (see combine results here and here). But the strange thing is that in Stewart's video, he's returning punts and that's usually reserved for a quicker guy. Stewart doesn't seem to have a really quick start, but is more of a long-stride type of player, but he's obviously effective. Again, it makes me wonder about the type of competition that's out in California. If I had to make a player comparison, I'm thinking that Stewart is a similar player to D.J. Johnson.

Austin, welcome to Texas Tech and Git Your Guns Up!

The 2012 Class: For more information on what a Cumulative Ranking is, go here, but the idea is to take all of the data from all of the recruiting services and put it into just one number. Thus, the idea is that a grade of 68 or 69 is a thee-star player, while a ranking of 83 or 84 is a four-star player. Anything in between those numbers or lower means that the player most likely has a lower grade with one service or another. For example, Quinton White is thought of by all the recruiting experts as a solid three-star player. While a player like Clayton Nicholas is mostly a three-star player but ESPN does give him a four-star grade, so his grade is a bit higher. All of the data should be on this Google spreadsheet.