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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

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Recruit switches from Idaho to Beavers

When I spoke with Robb Akey a week after the season, he mentioned the Vandals were competing against a Pac-10 school for a recruit. "That’s not an everyday occurrence," he said. But it now appears Idaho has lost out on that player -- partly because of the uncertainty with the WAC. Read on for more.

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Defensive end Desmond Collins of Salt Lake City, who had given Akey a verbal committment earlier, has switched his commitment to Oregon State, according to ESPN. "I actually committed to coach [Mike] Riley when he came over for a home visit last Friday," Collins told ESPN. "I just talked to coach [Rob] Akey about 30 minutes ago and gave him the bad news and honestly, it was easily the hardest thing I ever had to do. Coach Akey is awesome and an unbelievable guy but I just started to have some reservations about Idaho and felt like Oregon State was the best move for my future."

Akey said he knew other coaches would "throwing some rocks" during recruiting with the WAC in flux after Boise State leaves this year and Nevada, Fresno State and Hawaii leave the following year. And Collins said the conference issue factored into this decision.

"All along, my feeling was the two schools were pretty equal and the one difference was Oregon State played in a BCS conference," Collins told ESPN. "I was OK with that but lately, I started hearing more and more talk about a lot of schools jumping out of the WAC conference and it made me think a little more. I know Fresno State, Hawaii and maybe even Nevada could all leave and I don't know what that would do for the conference. I didn't know if Idaho would stay or if there would even be a conference any more."

According to Scout.com, Idaho has five known commits. All our rated as two-star recruits.



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