Steve Sarkisian picked up the first two committments of his tenure this past week when he reached into Southern California to get verbals from DE Talia Chrichton and QB/Athlete Josh Moten.
Chrichton has decent size at 6'4 240 pounds. He had 92 tackles and 18 sacks to lead his Lakewood HS team in 2008. Talia came on the radar late and had offers from UW, Utah, Idaho, and possibly Oregon. He says he has a good first step and resembles current Husky DE Everette Thompson with his tool set.
Click on the link above for some good film on Talia Chrichton.
Moten is a 6'1 180 lb athlete from Narbonne HS in Harbor City, California. He had offers from UW, Colorado, and San Jose State. He put up impressive numbers as a QB. He threw for 2,396 yards and 25 touchdowns and five interceptions. Despite those numbers most think he doesn't have the arm strength to be a Pac 10 QB. What he does have his good wheels and the ideal size to be a safety and that is the spot most are recruiting him for. Moten will likely get a shot at QB but pencil him in at safety.
LB Simi Vehikite a Washington target who resides in Hawaii gave his commitment to Ken Norton and USC after meeting with Sarkisian earlier this week. What the big fish wants the big fish usually gets. Vehikite was a sleeper who popped up on everyone's radar screens after putting together some great film.
All world OT Stan Hasiak will visit Washington in January and the Huskies have a very good chance of stealing the UCLA commit. Hasiak and his father are very impressed with the hiring of Jim Michalczik.
Garfield's Deandre Coleman recommitted from Washington and has committed to California. Coleman has little or no chance of qualifying but the word on the street is Cal will get him into a local JC and once he gets his AA degree in two years the road will be clear for him to be a Bear.
Cal has an advantage in this regard because all you need is an Cal JC AA degree to qualify. Washington on the other hand is a lot harder to get into via the JC route because of tougher requirements.
I wouldn't say Coleman is a lock to get that AA degree or even be a decent prospect in two years. His senior film was terrible to say the least and he is going to have to improve his work ethic in almost every way to be a factor some day.
The recruiting dead period started today and will end on January 2nd. Sarkisian will be in LA working full time for USC until after the Rose Bowl.