Texas Tech picked up their 10th commit, the 9th on offense, with the commitment of Derrick Willies, a JUCO receiver who was most recently at Iowa before transferring to Trinity Valley C.C.
| RECEIVER | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| DERRICK WILLIES | WIDE RECEIVER | ||
| HT/WT: 6-4/210 | FORTY: N/A | ||
| JUCO: Trinity Valley C.C. (Athens, TX) | |||
| OFFERS: Texas Tech | |||
| RECRUITING SERVICE: | RANKING: | POSITION RANK: | STATE RANK: |
| Rivals | N/R | N/R | N/R |
| Scout |  |
N/R | N/R |
| 24/7 Sports | 82 |
7 | 23 |
| ESPN | N/R | N/R | N/R |
| VIDEO: JUCO Hudl and HS Hudl | |||
| CUMULATIVE RANKING: 0.8200 | |||
| PROFILE DATE: May 22, 2015 | |||
The Player Speaks: Just to catch you up, Derrick Willies played his senior year of high school football just a short drive way from Iowa City, in Illinois. Willies committed to Iowa and redshirt the 2013 year and played in just 5 games last year for Iowa, catching 4 passes for 71 yards and a touchdown. Willies is an engineering major according to his Iowa Hawkeye profile and I could swear that I read somewhere that he carries a 3.0 GPA, but now I’m not sure where I read that. According to the QCTimes, when Willies left Iowa, he knew he wanted to go the JUCO route and get back to a Power Five conference and not have to sit out a year:
“It’s the right place for me,’’ Willies said. “I can compete next fall and then get back to the level where I want to be. I did not want to sit a year and I want to play at the highest level. Now, I have a chance to do both.’’
The interesting thing here is that Willies was dismissed from the team or left the program in October, but there’s no arrest or legal issues that I can find and in that article, he says that it’s “complicated” and was “unwilling to fulfill requirements that coach Kirk Ferentz laid out for him to rejoin the program.”
RELATED: 2016 JUCO WR Derrick Willies Commits to Texas Tech
Scouting Report: I feel like I’m watching Darrin Moore, but with more speed. The 6’4″ frame is legitimate and he towers over defensive backs. Just in the first video, his ability sell a route and then adjust is impressive and his ability to make leaping catches in the corner of the endzone are also impressive. Much like Bowman, you get to see his blocking ability in the video, and it’s fun to watch a kid that big make a clean block. I’m trying to figure out why he transferred from Iowa and the whole situation there, but maybe paying on an offense with Greg Davis manning the helm is not as fun as it sounds. I’ll be very interested to see how Willies does in Athens as I’m expecting a dominate performance this year. Assuming TVCC has a decent quarterback, and it appears that they do, Willies should be unstoppable.
Make sure and check out Staking The Plains’ Recruiting Table for links on every commit.