Recruiting 2011

Charlie Hopkins signed his letter of intent before school Wednesday and planned to spend the afternoon continuing rehabilitation from a season-ending knee injury last fall. The Gonzaga Prep defensive end is headed to Stanford. For that, Hopkins is grateful that the Palo Alto, Calif., school stood behind its offer even though he tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee midway through the season.

With remarkably few pressing needs coming off a national championship season, Eastern Washington coach Beau Baldwin had the luxury of being highly selective during a recruiting process abridged by his Eagles’ riveting run to the 2010 NCAA Division I football title last fall. As a result, Baldwin and his staff targeted their recruiting efforts on one or two top prospects at nearly every position, signing 20 high school players to national letters of intent on Wednesday.

Perhaps the mutually damning part of Gonzaga Prep running back Bishop Sankey wriggling off the hook of Washington State in the most overwrought recruiting derby in our city’s history was the young man’s explanation as to why he’d “committed” to the Cougars in the first place before reversing field this last week and throwing in with rival Washington. “At the time I committed to Washington State,” Sankey told ESPN 710 Seattle on Wednesday, “I didn’t have any other offers.”

University of Idaho's 2011 football recruiting class.

Washington gets the most coveted Spokane football player in more than a decade - Bishop Sankey - and the Cougars got some other guys that they’re all charged up about – and so it’s done. That is, it’s done until Sankey becomes an active principal in an Apple Cup. Then you’ll never hear the end of it.