Rankings aside, Ron Turner finds his ‘football players’ for FIU Panthers

If you want the embodiment of FIU’s 2015 recruiting class, it might be Booker T. Washington quarterback Maurice Alexander.

Like the class overall, Alexander comes with decorations and hardware as the Class 3A-4A All-State first-team quarterback of a nationally ranked state champion. Like the class overall, he doesn’t seem as highly regarded as you would expect given his accomplishments.

Like the class overall, FIU coach Ron Turner likes Alexander and doesn’t care what you, other schools or recruiting raters think.

Of the 22 signees counted in this year’s recruiting class, 21 are from Florida and nine are from Miami-Dade County. Four of those young men played key roles for Booker T. and Miami Central, Dade’s two best teams and two of the best in the country. Some FIU signees turned down offers from Power 5 schools.

Yet 247Sports.com ranked FIU’s class as 98th nationally, eighth in Conference USA. Scout.com had FIU at 108th nationally, 11th in the conference. Neither credited FIU for three-star defensive back Kenyatta Anderson. Rivals.com did and had FIU at 88th overall and sixth in C-USA.

“If we like somebody and think they can fit into us, we go after them and try to get them in here, regardless of where they’re ranked or what other people think of them,” Turner said. “Some guys are football players and some aren’t. When we evaluate the film, I want to get football players.

“I don’t want to get somebody that has all the measurable. You see that in the NFL. Guys who have the height, the weight the speed, but they’re not great on film. I said, ‘Let’s go get guys who are great on film.’ The guys we get, maybe they’re not 6-2, maybe they’re 6-0 or 6-1. Maybe they’re 10 pounds lighter than some other guys. Or instead of running a 4.4, they run a 4.5. But they’re really good football players. That’s what we’re looking for.”

Take Maurice Alexander.

“They believed in me from the jump when no other colleges did,” Alexander said. “They felt like they just needed football players, and I could come in and play as a true freshman. I’m going in to compete for the job. I don’t want anything given to me.”

Unlike FIU’s other 2015 quarterback recruit, 6-3 Christian Alexander out of Lakeland Christian, Maurice Alexander doesn’t have a towering bearing. But he does have a certain something that Turner noticed at one of FIU’s camps.

“He came into camp, everybody said he’s too short, he doesn’t weigh enough. I sat and talked to him and when he walked out, I said, ‘That kid has the It Factor you look for in a quarterback.’ I watched him go out in camp around kids he didn’t know. They were gravitating to him. Then, I watched him throw and said, ‘That’s enough, let’s offer this kid.’”

FIU came out of Wednesday with two fewer signees than some anticipated.

Keys Gate wide receiver Raymond Gage didn’t sign with FIU. Bryce Mingo-Bradley, a December verbal commit, signed with Jackson State. And Booker T. Washington three-star defensive back Ocie Rose, whose banner at the school’s signing day production bore an FIU logo, went to the podium and donned an FAU hat.

“It was a nice connection, family-wise, with the coaches,” Rose explained. “they showed me a lot of love. It was a really tough decision. [FIU] has been calling me a lot. I thought about it up until [Wednesday], when I woke up, when I got here.”

But moments after that, FIU landed Gulfport Boca Ciega defensive back Kenyatta Anderson, rated three stars by Rivals.com and Scout.com. Anderson visited Pitt, FIU and Cincinnati, respectively, over the past three weekends. Former Pitt defensive coordinator Matt House, just hired for the same job at FIU the weekend of Anderson’s visit, picked up Anderson’s recruiting and helped land him.

“He was at our camp in Tampa. We’ve been on him for a long time,” Turner said. “We were just in a battle with some other schools, and he committed to us a couple of days ago. Outstanding speed, good size.”

This story was originally published February 4, 2015 at 9:26 PM with the headline "Rankings aside, Ron Turner finds his ‘football players’ for FIU Panthers."