Washington Huskies Recruiting: Breaking Down the Jared Hilbers Verbal Commitment

The offensive line for the 2015 recruiting class just received a boost with the verbal commitment of Jared Hilbers on Monday. Hilbers, is out of Beaverton, Oregon checks in 6′ 6′ and roughly 275 lbs. This commitment slides in nicely in place of not getting a verbal commitment from Calvin Throckmorton out of Newport High School who verballed to Oregon. This has raised some eyebrows among some Husky fans out there by getting a commitment out of a player from the state of Oregon instead of keeping a local player at home.

First, the question has to be asked if Hilbers was a local product out of the state of Washington and Throckmorton was from out-of-state would Husky fans be as concerned about the commitment of Hilbers. My guess is probably not as fans in the state of Washington with the provincial mindset they have will always overvalue the local high school prospect.

The Hilbers commitment came pretty quickly as the Husky coaches offered him a scholarship at the Rising Stars camp earlier this month. Overall, Hilbers had a pretty solid mix of offers from other Pac-12 and Mountain West schools as has the physical upside that is very intriguing. What will be interesting to see is what schools start to come in with offers now that Hilbers has verballed to the Huskies.

In looking ahead to 2015, Hilbers looks like a prime candidate to be a redshirt. The redshirt year would provide an excellent to just lock in with strength coach Tim Socha and get to work in the weight room to get his strength and weight up closer to 290-300 lbs. If Hilbers can do that then he will be in prime position to play by 2016 or 2017.

Finally, for  Hilbers instead of evaluating him based on star ratings by so-called recruiting gurus that will have zero responsibility for coaching him at the college level. The evaluation should be focused on what the offensive line coach does with him once he shows up as offensive line is the ultimate player development type of position. If developed properly Hilbers should be able to have a nice college career at Washington.