Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports
Yes, WSU took a full 2016 class on Signing Day in February, but there’s some kind of complicated roster juggling that allowed the Cougs to pick up a full-qualifier QB prospect from City College of San Francisco, who should be immediately able to participate.
Washington State went through a couple targets at quarterback in the last recruiting cycle, before finally settling on not filling the position in a loaded 25-man class that was solidified early on Signing Day. It appears the WSU coaching staff wasn’t quite done looking, and after a little more time than usual Mike Leach has found his guy in Anthony Gordon, per CougFan, out of City College of San Francisco.
Gordon won the California Community College Athletics Association state title last season as a true freshman on San Francisco, picking up Offensive MVP honors for his efforts. San Francisco runs a similar version of Coach Leach’s Air Raid. On the season, Gordon went 286-of-439 (65.1%) for 3864 yards (8.8 YPA) and 37 touchdowns against only 13 interceptions.
Gordon’s a full qualifier, which means he doesn’t have to obtain an AA before transferring to a Division 1 University. If he enrolls this summer and signs a financial aid agreement, he’ll have three full years plus a redshirt season. That’s a huge advantage to recruiting him, and it’ll add immediate, highly capable roster depth at quarterback for practices next fall.
Standing at 6-3 and weighing around 185 pounds, Gordon could really stand to use a redshirt season to get up to a more durable size, but his skill set is extremely impressive. The Hudl highlights are embedded below.
Gordon has excellent pocket mobility, doing exactly what you need to do in this offense — sliding, stepping up, keeping eyes downfield — to buy time for receivers to hit windows. His touch and accuracy are ridiculous for his age. Nearly everything is on-numbers and in-stride, doesn’t matter if its a running back flaring to the flat or a receiver on a skinny post. You get a heavy dose of corners, seams, and posts in the first few minutes.
You can also get a sense of how well he sees the whole field, rarely is he throwing at a target that wasn’t the most open on the play. He was near flawless in his reads throughout the whole highlight package, which is extremely rare to see. Gordon will probably need to add a little velocity, which would be his biggest criticism, but his arm strength certainly isn’t poor by any stretch and you don’t really need a high-powered rocket-arm to succeed in this offense anyway.
Congratulations to Anthony! Welcome to Wazzu and Go Cougs!