FAIRMONT — Don’t look now but the rosters at Saturday’s annual North-South All-Star Football Classic at 7 p.m. at University of Charleston Stadium in Charleston are dotted with a large number of Fairmont State University recruits for the second straight year.
No less than 15 future Falcons will suit up for Saturday evening’s game — 11 for the North and four for the South.
It’s a testament to third-year FSU head coach Mike Lopez’s promise when he took over the Falcons' program just prior to the 2008 season to recruit the best talent the Mountain State had to offer.
“It’s kind of a pride thing for us,” said Lopez Wednesday afternoon. “It shows we’re being true to our word when we said we wanted to recruit the best talent this state had to offer. When you look at the North-South rosters we've got 15 kids playing in this all-star game.
“Last year I believe we were supposed to have 17 kids in the game and ended up having 15 compete in it. The thing is these kids are good players. A lot of guys who played in this game last year saw time for us as true freshmen this past fall and we even had a few of them end up starting for us. Guys like Josh Kniceley and Sean Murphy both started for us last season so it shows we’re getting a lot of good talent from West Virginia.”
The 11 future Falcons who will don the North uniforms Saturday include: Morgantown’s Daniel Strosnider, University’s Brandon Tucker and Devin Hilling, Jefferson’s Dewey McDonald and Brandon
Hyler, Fairmont Senior’s Anthony Domico and Jonathan Haun, Grafton’s Asa Coplin, Keyser’s Matt Wilmer, Musselman’s Casey Cochran and Parkersburg South’s Chanz Jarrell.
Tucker, McDonald and Hyler are all expected to play on both offense and defense in the game for North coach Mark Yoho, who guided Grafton to the Class AA State Championship in his first season at the school this past fall.
“When you talk to all of the coaches down here the consensus is that Fairmont State did a great job of recruiting talent in the state this year,” said Yoho. “They went after a lot of good players and got them. Now you can’t always predict how those guys are going to pan out at the college level, but it certainly appears that Mike Lopez and his staff did a great job of recruiting.
“Some of our best players in this game are going to Fairmont. Guys like Daniel Strosnider, Dewey McDonald, Brandon Tucker and Asa Coplin just to name a few are all standing out for us. They’re smart kids who pick up things fast and they’re hard workers which is why they’re in the position they're in right now. Those are kids you can definitely build a program around.
“Heck, the Tucker kid is so good at corner it doesn’t matter who we put out there to go against him he can cover them. We absolutely cannot throw the ball on him in practice. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him go into fall camp this year at Fairmont and compete for a starting spot. He’s that good.”
The four future Fairmont players who will play for the South Saturday evening include Capital’s Jake Kelly and James Woods, Hurricane’s Terrell Martin and Nicholas County’s Patrick O'Dell.
“When you recruit you usually look at recruiting for the future,” said Lopez. “That’s certainly the case for a lot of these guys, but on the other hand we anticipate as many as seven of the 15 players in the North-South game to come in this fall and realistically have a chance to compete for playing time.”
FSU will open fall camp in early August. The Falcons’ first game is set for Thursday, Aug. 27 at 7 p.m. at home against Clarion (Pa.) University at Duvall-Rosier Field.
Duane Cochrane
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PHOTO BY TAMMY SHRIVER
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North-South rosters filled with Falcons
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