CCSF linebacker Fred Thompkins picks WSU

The Washington State Cougars added the 14th member of their recruiting class on Friday when juco linebacker Fred Thompkins announced his commitment to Nick Rolovich’s program via Twitter.

Thompkins is heading into his sophomore season at City College of San Francisco and is listed at 6-foot/235 pounds. The evaluators at 247 rate him as a low three-star prospect, but he doesn’t yet have a composite rating. He holds reported offers from a slew of Group of 5 schools, including Memphis, FAU and UCF; WSU is his only reported Power 5 offer.

Linebacker is a position where the Cougars appear to be pretty thin heading into 2021; both of 2019’s starters — Jahad Woods and Justus Rogers — will be redshirt seniors in 2020, as will Dillon Sherman, who missed all of 2019 with an injury.

It’s possible Sherman could get back a year of eligibility with a medical hardship waiver and play in 2021, but you can’t count on that, and it’s not good to be graduating your presumed top three guys and then turning the keys over to younger, inexperienced guys. Travion Brown, Peni Naulu and Rocky Katoanga are all touted, but green at this point, so Thompkins will provide some necessary experience.

Here are his highlights from his freshman season. It doesn’t look like he’ll blow you away with speed, but he’s a sure tackler with a nose for the ball — he had 90 tackles in 11 games, most of them of the solo variety. He also had 16 tackles-for-loss, eight sacks, two forced fumbles, one fumble recovery and one interception

CCSF has been a pretty popular recruiting location for WSU over the years; that’s the school that also produced Anthony Gordon, Easop Winston Jr., Shalom Luani, Robert Taylor, Robert Valencia and Derrick Langford. It’s also where Rolovich played once upon a time before setting records with the Hawaii Warriors.

The Cougs now have 14 players committed for 2021. You can check out the entire class here.