BATON ROUGE — With a talented group of 27 student-athletes, LSU head football coach Nick Saban and his staff’s Signing Class of 2003 was ranked No. 1 by several national publications including ESPN.com, Rivals.com, CBS’s Sportsline.com and FOXSports.com. Highlight videos of all of these student-athletes are now available to members of LSUsports.tv.
LSU head coach Nick Saban officially welcomed 26 of these student-athletes who faxed or mailed National Letters of Intent at a 4 p.m. CST press conference.
“I think this is a very solid class,” Saban said. “All of our signees have a reputation and they certainly earned their reputation in terms of what they have accomplished as players. Every one of them has a lot of potential, but more than any other game that is played, guys continue to develop in football. We are going to develop them to be the kind of football players they want or hope to aspire to be so that we have the chance to compete for championships.
“I think this class satisfied most needs. I think almost at every position, we recruited a player that can upgrade that position at some point in time in the future. Linebackers, safeties, defensive linemen, wide receivers, a couple of running backs, all those are areas where we wanted to get some impact players, and I think we did. The thing that I am probably most proud of about the group is the character and quality of these guys. It just seems like every year you recruit guys and you have some question about some problem they have had. This does not seem to be the case with the guys on this list. We probably have a few guys that have some academic work to do, but for the most part it was a strong academic class. From that standpoint, I feel very good about this group.”
Heading the list of signees for the Tigers include Parade All-America quarterback JaMarcus Russell, who rewrote the Alabama prep record book with 10,744 yards passing and 84 touchdowns at Williamson High School in Mobile, Ala. Russell announced his intention to play for the Tigers on FOX Sports South’s “Countdown to Signing Day” just after 6:40 p.m. He was LSU’s 27th and final student-athlete signed.
LSU’s signing class contains 15 players from the state of Louisiana, four from Texas and two each from Alabama, Florida, Mississippi and Maryland.
Among the 15 in-state signees were a quartet from John Curtis High School in River Ridge, La., (DT Jarrod Carter, PK Chris Jackson, OL Jerry Sevin and DE Carnell Stewart), a trio from New Orleans’ O.P. Walker High School (LB Dominic Cooper, WR Craig Davis and DB Daryl Johnson) and a pair from Breaux Bridge High School in the heart of Acadiana (LB Darius Ingram and DB Jonathan Zenon).
Jackson, a placekicker, was one of a pair of specialists included in the signing class along with punter Patrick Fisher of Hyattsville, Md.
Davis completed a threesome of the some of the most highly touted wide receivers in the nation who helped to give this season’s class straight “A’s” on a national scale. A pair of Florida products — Amp Hill of Jacksonville and Dwayne Bowe of Miami — give LSU three wideouts who stand at least 6-foot-3.
Another major factor in this class’ No. 1 national ranking was a pair of the best quarterbacks in this year’s class. Russell and Matt Flynn of Tyler, Texas, each bring a strong throwing arm and agility in the backfield that helped LSU overcome the loss of Neville, La., product Robert Lane. Lane, who de-committed from LSU, is rumored to be considering a professional baseball career despite signing with Ole Miss.