WSU football recruiting: Cougs land big receiver from Oxnard

You can never have enough wide receiver bodies in the Air Raid and the Cougs have locked down another one. Oxnard, Calif. wide out Stephen Houston has pledged crimson, as first reported by Cougfan.com.

I'd usually spend this portion of a recruiting article telling you about other offers a player had but, near as I can tell, Houston doesn't have any. His Rivals page is devoid of anything of substance, other than his height and weight.  His Scout page is basically the same. He hasn't been evaluated by any recruiting service just yet so we'll have to go off of his Hudl video from his junior season.

The first thing that stands out is his height and agility. The reel shows Houston catching quite a few screen passes, something Mike Leach loves to see run in his offense. Although he's not going to blow you away with his speed (Rivals claims he runs a 4.5 40-yard dash but without having even evaluated him, I'm not sure I'd trust it) but he's agile and presents a big target.

He does break through tacklers nicely, using his size to bowl over the smaller guys he's playing against in high school. Although college defensive backs will be bigger, at 6'3 and nearly 200 pounds, Houston shouldn't have any problems going through a few of them.

He projects as a fairly raw Vince Mayle type receiver to me: adept at catching the ball and running through or around defenders. We'll see if the recruiting services agree once he finally gets an evaluation.