On Wednesday, Feb. 5, the University’s football team announced their recruiting class for the 2014 season. The class consists of 20 student-athletes from eight states, including the football program’s first signee from the state of Florida.
“This is our first recruiting class as a member of the Big South Conference and the quality of the players that make up this class is outstanding,” said head coach Kevin Callahan. “Our recruiting philosophy is to work from the inside out and this group contains seven players from NJ including a number of local players. Additionally, joining the Big South has allowed us to extend our geographic footprint from Massachusetts to Florida while continuing to be successful recruiting the players from the Mid-Atlantic region.”
Since the Hawks are joining the Big South conference this upcoming fall, Callahan had more bullets to work with this offseason in regards to how many scholarships they could offer. As a former member of the Northeast Conference (NEC), the football programs were only allowed to issue 40-scholarships. With the move to the new conference, the Hawks are able to issue ten additional scholarships, bringing the number from 40 to 50. Furthermore, plans for a $15-million upgrade to Kessler Field have been planned to increase the program’s desirability and creditability. With a new conference, stadium upgrades, and more scholarships to offer, the Hawks can take more approaches to recruiting.
Callahan and the Hawks’ coaching staff managed to sign seven players from NJ, four from PA, two from MD, two from VA, one from NY, one from MA, and one from IL while managing to sign two from the state of FL.
While four signees are local products from the Shore Conference, the headliner of the class is Marcus Leslie, a defensive back from Miami’s Coral Reef High School. Leslie is the first prep recruit to sign from the state of Florida. He is also Callahan’s most ballyhooed recruit since he took over the football program in 1993. Just how big of a get is Leslie? According to Asbury Park Press columnist, Josh Newman, Leslie chose to sign with MU over the likes of Appalachian State, Ohio, Florida International, and Ole Miss.
“There’s definitely a step up we felt we needed to take as we move forward into a new league and a new level of competition,” Callahan said at Monmouth’s National Signing Day event in the Multipurpose Activity Center. “With having the ability to play an FBS team within next two years, we knew we needed to upgrade players in our program and that starts with this class.”
Moments after signing his National Letter of Intent at Coral Reef, Leslie told the Asbury Park Press why he chose MU. “The environment, the people, the coaching staff, everyone was really tight and they seem like they want a team that has unity all the time. That drew my attention,” he said. “Everything really impressed me about Monmouth. I wanted to feel wanted and they really made me feel wanted. I’m extremely excited for this opportunity and this is definitely where I want to spend my four years of college.”
“I think Coach Dorsett [the Hawks’ RB coach] and I, we built a really good relationship pretty quickly,” Leslie said. “He’s a real cool guy and when it comes down to it….that’s the man I going to go to and he was a very important factor in this decision.”
“This year is step one and we’re not looking at this as a four-year process, but we’re looking at it as ‘right now’ process,” Callahan said. “We’re preparing to win right now and we’re doing everything in our power right now to do that.”
Callahan announced that the Hawks will begin spring practices on Tuesday, March 25 and the Blue/White spring football game is tentatively set for Saturday, April 26.
The Hawks’ are scheduled to kick off the 2014 season at Kessler Field against Delaware State on Saturday, August 30. This will be the first time that the Hawks and the Hornets, members of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC), will play against each other. MU’s debut in the Big South is scheduled for Saturday, October 25 when they travel to Clinton, South Carolina to battle the Presbyterian College Blue Hose.
PHOTO COURTESY of Scott Narder
