Baylor solidified their offensive line Monday by adding the commitment from four-star offensive tackle JP Urquidez to give the Bears the No. 12 class.
Four-star offensive tackle JP Urquidez (Copperas Cove, TX. Copperas Cove) committed to the Baylor Bears on Monday afternoon, making the announcement via Twitter.
Proud to say im 100% commiting to Baylor University!! #SicEm 🐻🐻🐻🐻🐻
— JP Urquidez (@JP_OT2016) April 13, 2015
The 6-foot-5.5-inch, 300-pound lineman was going to make his announcement in March, but the announcement was delayed per the BearsTruth blog on the 247Sports network. Urquidez is the No. 227 player overall in the class of 2016, the No. 20 offense tackle in his class and the No. 33 overall recruit of his class in the state of Texas, according to the 247Sports Composite Rankings.
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Receiving offers from all over the country, Urquidez was highly valued by many teams. Among others, he was offered in the ACC (Clemson, Florida State, Miami, and Virginia Tech), Big 12 (Baylor, Kansas State, Oklahoma, Texas, Texas Tech, and West Virginia), Big 10 (Maryland, Michigan State, Nebraska, Penn State, and Rutgers) and the SEC (Georgia, Ole Miss, South Carolina, Texas A&M, and Vanderbilt.)
Ultimately, the work of co-offensive Coordinator/offensive line coach oach Randy Clements and running backs coach Jeff Libby got the job done. Clements did the primary recruiting while Libby was the secondary recruiter. With his size, he should be able to make an impact for the program.
This has to be considered a victory for the Bears as they kept an elite recruit in-state and edged out in-state rivals Texas for his services.
Baylor’s recruitment of the tackle started last year when on July 18, he took an unofficial visit to the program. He then visited the program again on November 1, beginning to show more interest in the program. Over the past month, things began to heat up again between Urquidez and the program as he took another unofficial visit on March 20, culminating with Monday’s commitment.
This is the Bears’ third four-star commitment in the 2016 class and the seventh commitment of the class overall.
With today’s commitment, Baylor moves up to the nation’s No. 12 class overall and the No. 2 class in the Big 12, according to the 247Sports team rankings.
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