Last week, I put the 2025 recruiting class in context and analyzed what it means for where WSU is headed in this post-Pac-12 world. If you missed it, you can read it here.

This week, I want to look at a few guys who stood out to me as I was digging around and looking at videos.

Sherman Oaks, Calif. | 5-foot-11.5 | 165 pounds

Notable offers: Colorado State, Connecticut, Delaware State, Florida Atlantic, Georgia, Kansas, Minnesota, Purdue, Texas A&M, Utah.

Highlights:

Quarterback is what everyone wants to know about first, and not without good reason: As the QB goes, the team usually goes, and while transfer rules have made it a bit less essential to always recruit this position well at the high school level, it’s still important to have a line of potential good ones on the roster.

To that end, is there anything better than this??

WE BEAT OUT GEORGIA AND TEXAS A&M FOR A QB! PRINT THE SHIRTS!!

OK, just kidding. Sort of. I’ll get back to that in a second.

What is most interesting to me about Pizzella is that he is a further departure from the kinds of tall, strong, big-armed QBs that have been Washington State’s legacy for literal generations. He’s listed by 247Sports at “5-foot-11.5,” which makes me chuckle, because throwing on that extra .5 means that someone, somewhere, really, really wants to make the point that he’s not actually too short to be a college QB.

When you watch the video of his highlights, it’s easy to see that he actually is quite short. I’m not going say he’s not 5-11.5, but it also wouldn’t surprise me if there was some fudging going on there. And 165 is very, very light.

However, what he lacks in size, he makes up for in pure, unadulterated, speed: He ran a 10.64 100-meter in track last spring, and when he breaks the pocket as a QB, it’s absolute havoc for the defense.

Of course, quarterbacks don’t just run around. Pizella seems like an accurate enough thrower, and while his arm doesn’t wow you, it certainly appears good enough for this level, despite a bit of a weird motion in which he doesn’t really drive through the throw and kind of flicks it off his back foot — perhaps a function of his height? He does seem very accurate on the move — again, if I’m speculating, might be a function of cleaner sight lines — which is a really great ability to have if your legs afford you the opportunity to buy time and space.

Pizzella’s particular combo of size and speed makes him a uniquely intriguing quarterback prospect for Washington State, and I’m guessing it’s that athletic profile that is behind his offers from Georgia, Texas A&M, and other Power Four schools. I can’t find anything concrete, but I have to believe those programs— which regularly recruit five- and four-star high school QBs who are fast and also big and ALSO tall — were interested in Pizzella as a receiver rather than quarterback. But that does give you sense of his legitimate athleticism.

At WSU, Ben Arbuckle will be trying to maximize that athleticism from behind center. Which leads me to wonder what this might be signaling for WSU’s recruiting philosophy at QB. Since signing Cam Ward, WSU seems to be focusing largely on mobile, athletic quarterbacks: John Mateer (2022), Evans Chuba (2024), Zevi Eckhaus (2024) and Pizzella. Chuba is tall and big armed (if erratic as a passer), but the other three are neither tall nor strong armed. The only one who doesn’t fit that mold is 2023 recruit Jaxon Potter, who is 6-5.

Is this a preference? Or is this a reflection of the kinds of guys we are now able to recruit as we continue to seek out some kind of edge?

Pearland, Texas | 6-foot | 185 pounds

Notable offers: Arizona State, Kansas, Louisiana, Dartmouth, Eastern Illinois.

Highlights:

Peterson one of the most recent commits to the class, and the highest-rated according to the scouts at 247Sports. It’s easy to see what the evaluators like, and it’s easy to see why he’d be a favorite of Jake Dickert.

The first thing you notice when watching his highlights is that when he puts his foot in the ground, he gets downhill in a hurry. And when he gets in position to make the tackle, he doesn’t miss. Granted, these are highlights — if he is missing tackles, you’re certainly not going to see it here. However, you can sort of just tell that he has a nose for making a sure tackle; he’s not making desperate lunges at guys, not flying out of control and overwhelming inferior athletes. And he seems to really enjoy the contact.

He also seems to have pretty good ball skills — not always the strong suit of safeties. He shows up with a couple of interceptions in these highlights, which is great, but there’s a difference between a interception that falls into your lap and one where you actually have to do something to get in position, and Peterson seems to have a real natural feel for how to get his body into a spot where he can make a play on the ball.

"Right before I committed I had an hour meeting with Coach (Jordan) Malone just breaking down the defensive stuff," Peterson told Jamey Vinnick. "We were breaking down some of my film and they were saying the whole time I would be a great fit for the defense. But I also know they weren't just saying that. Because even breaking down the film, my film looked like a high school version of Jaden Hicks' film and that's what they want me to be. That strong safety player coming into to play in the box but also underneath."

Maybe that’s just coach recruiting-speak, but that’s one hell of a comparison. And it certainly doesn’t hurt to be able to drop the name of an NFL Draft pick when you’re trying to seal the deal.

Albany, Oregon | 6-foot-5 | 220 pounds

Notable offers: Boise State, Air Force, Army.

Highlights:

Folks: I am absolutely enamored with this kid. 247Sports rates him with an 85, classifying him as a mid-3-star recruit and ranking him as the 90th best tight end in the country. But I think he’s much better than that — and if he doesn’t blow up as a senior and start getting a bunch of offers, WSU will have gotten a steal.

He’s big, and he’s clearly got room on his frame to get quite a bit bigger. He’s fast, but also with enough agility that you can imagine him running good routes in the middle of the field. And he’s got really good hands. He’s got all the tools to be a really good tight end for us.

With all this, I can only think of a couple of reasons why he’s not more highly recruited.

First, let’s talk about West Albany High, a school of about 1,200 located about half way between Salem and Eugene, near Corvallis, as you travel down I-5. Geographically, this is not a football hotbed. West Albany competes in Oregon’s second-biggest division, so it’s not exactly a tiny school … but also, being in the second-biggest division in Oregon isn’t really “big.”

And it shows on the highlights: Simmons is the largest kid on the field for most of the clips. The level of competition is low.

Second, he’s consistently lined up as a wide-out. This makes sense for his high school to do, as he is a physical mismatch for just about every tiny corner who tries to contain him. But that pretty clearly isn’t where he’s going to play in college, so there’s no way to really get a true sense of what he might do as a tight end. And even if he did line up at tight end, we’d be back to him blasting little dudes, anyway.

When you put those two things together, it doesn’t shock me that bigger schools either wouldn’t care to look closely enough at Simmons or wouldn’t want to take a risk on a kid coming from a small town when they have plenty of options with guys who they can evaluate against “like” competition.

The thing that sticks out most to me is that while he’s the biggest guy on the field, he’s also the fastest. He consistently outruns a bunch of guys who are much smaller than he is, which isn’t what you typically see, even at the 5A level of Oregon high school football.

I do think there’s an outside chance that ends up at edge rather than tight end. But man, I’d love to see us try and develop a real deal pass catching tight end with that type of size.