New 2008 Commitment - Tim Molton

At this rate, I'm never going to be able to complete my profiles of 2007 recruits. Every day, something important is happening that must delay planned posts. Yesterday Tim Molton, wide receiver, 6'3" 185#, 3-star, from Destrehan High School became the next Tiger commitment at LSU's annual July camp where he shined. He runs a very speedy 4.45 second 40 with a 36" vertical. Those numbers are impressive, as is his high school video, which shows good ability to move in space. There are also rumors swirling that QB/WR Darron Thomas committed as well, but there appears to be an issue or two holding that up.

Tim Molton said, upon his commitment, "I always wanted to stay home and play at LSU, and now I can." You have to like a kid who says he always wanted to play at LSU and that he was just waiting for an offer.

And what an interesting offer it was. LSU is in on a lot of very highly regarded wide receivers, people like Julio Jones, DeAndre Brown, Chris Tolliver, Corey Surrency, Jeff Fuller, and Brice Butler, who are all national-level recruit who are 4- or 5-star recruits, and yet this is the second 3-star local wide receiver who has committed to LSU (with the other re-opening his recruitment two days ago). It suggests that the long-standing rumors that Louisiana's high school talent is down this year may not be true. The chatter on the message boards is that the coaches believe the talent-level in Louisiana is just fine, and I would trust their judgment on this. They've proven they know talent.

Mlton's offer also suggests that LSU is either going to take quite a few receivers this year, or DeAngelo Peterson may have lost his scholarship slot. LSU hopes to add recently-prep-school-bound DeAngelo Benton to next year's class, hopes to add all-world receiver Julio Jones to this class (that will be a long recruitment though), strongly believes in-state talent Chris Tolliver (the highest rated player in the state at any position according to the services), and DeAndre Brown (the highest rated player in Mississippi and a strong lean to LSU)to the 2008 wide receiver corps. Early commitment Jhyryn Taylor also projects as a wide receiver. Is LSU going to take 7 wide receivers this year? That sounds like an awful lot. I can't see Les Miles shutting any of those guys out to take Peterson or Molton.

Congratulations to Tim Molton. He is definitely a very good athlete, and I look forward to hearing more from him.

Of course, rumors also swirl that Jhyryn Taylor is unlikely to qualify due to grades, and that Tolliver, Molton, and Brown all have work to do to get qualified as well. We may be taking 6-7 wide receiver commits this year hoping that 4 will qualify. We took 4 pure wide receiver recruits and came rather close to having NONE of them qualify. So far, two have been confirmed not to qualify and we're still waiting on Demetrius Byrd's results. Molton was allegedly told months ago that he'd need to get his academics improved in order to get an offer, and it has been reported he did well in some summer school classes which will pull his GPA up considerably, leading to his offer. He still has to improve his ACT, however, but word is that he is within striking distance of qualifying.

So this may be the most interesting of LSU's commitments so far, because of what it tells us about:

• the coaches' opinion of Louisiana's talent level,
• the coaches' approach to wide receivers this year, which is to take a lot of them, and
  
• suggests that Molton's academics may be close to being in order.