Bobcats round out recruiting class with three signees

Texas State added three more recruits on National Signing Day to bring its class total to 19.

The Bobcats picked up commitments from quarterback/wide receiver Zion Childress, wide receiver Jacob Horn and defensive end Derrick Ray.

Childress is rated as a 3-star recruit by 247 Sports, hailing from New Caney. Childress originally verbally committed to UTSA on July 26, 2019, but opened his recruitment back up on Jan. 20. Eleven days later, he made an official visit to Texas State and signed his letter of intent on Friday. 

Jaycob Horn, from Tupelo, Mississippi, is the son of former four-time NFL Pro Bowl wide receiver Joe Horn. Jaycob caught 53 passes for 812 yards and seven touchdowns in his senior season at Tupelo and initially committed to join Ole Miss. The wideout decommitted on Jan. 26, made his visit to San Marcos on Jan. 31 and signed on Wednesday.

Ray is transferring from Trinity Valley Community College. He racked up 45 tackles for the Cardinals in his sophomore season, including 24 solo stops, 5.0 for a loss and 4.5 for sacks.

“When you lose 22 seniors, you gotta replace a lot of different people. But there’s a lot of optimism about this,” Spavital said. “And what I like to see is that we’ve had a ton of conversations, really in the month of December and in November and kind of late October, leading into what we needed to address in recruiting. And you get to December, we hit it running. We came back from the Coastal Carolina game and we went straight out on the road and tried to hit as many as many immediate needs as possible.”

The trio of recruits will join Spavital’s 16 early signees. The high school seniors of the maroon and gold’s class includes offensive linemen Russell Baker, Austin Markiewicz and Trenton Scott, and linebackers John and Josh Emmanuel and Issiah Nixon. Junior college transfers include wide receivers Marcell Barbee and Drue Jackson, offensive lineman Alex Costila, safety Grid Isidore, linebackers Isaiah Karriem and Maureese Wren and running back Brock Sturges. Four-year college transfers include running back Jahmyl Jeter, offensive lineman Silas Robinson and defensive back Tory Spears.

The class ranks No. 5 in the Sun Belt and No. 97 in the Football Bowl Subdivision, per 247 Sports, with 145.19 points.

Spavital said one of his main goals in recruiting was to find bigger body types. Of the 19 recruits in this year’s class, Sturges is the lone player listed below 6-feet tall. The average size of the group’s five offensive lineman is 6-foot-4.5, 292 pounds.

“We wanted to change the profile of our team,” Spavital said. “But what we wanted to do is we wanted to change the profile of our team. Like I said, when you go through a year, first time in the Sun Belt, first time with these current players on what we have water, our needs, and We thought, as a staff, we wanted to be a bigger, longer, more athletic team. We have some talented kids, don’t get me wrong, but we have a lot of small body types out there. And we’ve always been a big believer — and I’ve learned this for a long time — that big people beat up little people. It’s just football and this is how it is. So we tried to get the biggest body types that we possibly could and I think we’ve done a good job at that.”

Texas State’s Maroon & Gold Spring Game will take place on April 11.