Football Recruiting
Report
Monday, March 9, 2015
By Sammy Batten |
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Long-term recruiting effort lands tackle
Recruiting Class of 2015 Thumbnail Sketches...
By
Sammy Batten
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A connection with East Carolina that
didn't originally pay off for the Pirates helped produce an important
late addition to the football recruiting Class of 2015.
Junior college defensive tackle Darius
Commissiong became the 19th member of the ECU Class of '15 on February 26
when he signed a national letter of intent. A 6-foot-1, 270-pounder for Iowa
Western's national junior college runner-ups last season, Commissiong chose
the Pirates over offers from Georgia State, Idaho, Iowa State,
Louisiana-Monroe, Memphis, Middle Tennessee State, Southern Miss and Troy.
The Pirates and a whole different set of
programs also pursued Commissiong heavily between July 2011 and May 2012
while he was playing at Bishop McNamara High School located just outside his
hometown of Washington, D.C.
Born and raised in the D.C. area,
Commissiong had been focused on creating a football career for himself since
picking up the sport at age 7.
“I come from a very athletic family,''
Commissiong said during a telephone interview last week from Iowa Western's
campus in Council Bluffs, which is just outside of Omaha. “Both my
grandparents were athletes. Everybody on my mother's side played football or
basketball.
“My mother put me in football around 7,
and I was always pretty good at it. Since I started playing my mentality has
always been that I was going to play college football. It's been my goal
since I was a kid to do that, and play in the NFL.''
Commissiong had transferred from
well-known DeMatha High to Bishop McNamara prior to his sophomore season and
immediately became a full-time starter on the varsity football team.
Syracuse became the first major program to extend a scholarship offer in
July following his sophomore year and others like Boston College, Duke,
Georgia Tech, Iowa, Maryland, N.C. State, North Carolina, Purdue, Syracuse,
Virginia and Wake Forest would follow.
But ECU beat all but Syracuse to the
punch when it came to offering Commissiong a scholarship.
“They were my second offer after
Syracuse,'' Commissiong said. “(Defensive line) Coach (Marc) Yellock came
and sat down with me and another teammate they were recruiting heavily. I
also went down to Coach (Ruffin) McNeill's clinic and had a discussion with
him as well. I had a good relationship with both (Yellock and McNeill).
“But at that moment I was convinced the
best place for me was another school.''
That school was Georgia Tech, where
Commissiong verbally committed in May 2012 after a junior season in which he
made 12 quarterback sacks and averaged eight tackles a game. He would wind
up signing with the Yellow Jackets in February 2013.
Commissiong's time in Atlanta was cut
short when, after a red-shirt freshman season in 2013, he was dismissed from
the program in July 2014 for a violating Georgia Tech's student-athlete code
of conduct.
The dismissal led Commissiong to Council
Bluffs where he revived his career in one season.
Playing for an Iowa Western team that
finished 11-1 and reached the junior college national championship game,
Commissiong made 63 total tackles, 3.5 sacks and 11.5 tackles for loss. The
performance earned him second-team all-league honors and again had many
college recruiters vying for his services.
ECU's Yellock had continued to follow
Commissiong's career even after he signed with Georgia Tech. When Yellock
heard Commissiong had transferred to Iowa Western, he quickly re-established
contact.
“Coach Yellock reached out to me just
after our first game and told me they were going to recruit me,''
Commissiong said. “Once they offered again, they were pretty high on my list
because of the fact I was already familiar with them. Plus, I knew it was a
good program and close to home, which I wanted to be.''
An official visit to Greenville just
before national signing day in early February convinced Commissiong he
wanted to be a Pirate.
“Coach McNeill and the whole staff are
very genuine,'' he said. “It's a very good academic school. I knew I'd be
able to go there and get a degree, and I know I can come in and be a very
good asset to the (football) team. I expect to compete for a starting
position from the first day I'm there.
“My trademark is getting after the
quarterback. I think I'm be an asset to them automatically as a third-down
pass rusher. But I can contribute in the run game as well.''
Commissiong isn't likely to arrive in
Greenville until July. He has to complete requirements for an Associate of
Arts degree at Iowa Western before he's eligible to enroll at ECU.
“I'm taking online classes now because I
have to get the associate's degree before I go there (ECU),'' he said. “But
I should be done taking those so I can be there in July.''
Although Commissiong has benefited
greatly from his time at Iowa Western, he won't mind leaving the harsh Iowa
winter behind.
“Football-wise, academically, it's been a
good experience,'' he said. “We finished number two in the nation and played
in the national championship game.
“But the weather here has been a little
bit of an adjustment. I remember one practice I wore a trench coat and
jacket underneath my shoulder pads to keep warm. I couldn't feel my toes.''
E-mail Sammy Batten
PAGE UPDATED
03/09/15 08:56 PM.
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