A thumbnail assessment of the WVU recruiting class, as thumbed by Bill Stewart. Some thumbnails are larger than others.

Travis Bell: “Why is he a free safety? Because he had 10 interceptions as a senior and he runs sideline to sideline.”

Barry Brunetti: “Tremendous football player. State champ. You can read all the stuff about Barry Brunetti, but let me tell you this fact. Listen and listen closely: This young man has not lost a football game he has started since seventh grade.”

Dante Chambers: “Quick, elusive, speedy little slot receiver. We didn’t want a bunch of little ones. We wanted fast, tall, athletic guys. Dante is about my height. I guess that’s tall enough because he’s fast and quick.

“He was teammates of our quarterback here now, Geno Smith, and of Stedman Bailey and another youngster (Sticks) we’ll talk about. But this was not a package deal. When his name came up, I immediately went to Geno Smith and Stedman Bailey and said, ‘Tell me about Dante Chambers.’ They said, ‘He’s a nicer guy than us. He stays home more than we do. He probably plays more Nintendo video games than we do and he’s faster than Ivan, faster than Stedman.’ Geno said, ‘He’s faster than me.’ I said, ‘Really?’

Trevor Demko: “Nice young man with a lot of frame.”

Michael Dorsey: “He’s a great student of the game and he played in the Wildcat at his size — 6-3, 210, 215 pounds, tremendous athlete. I hope we can keep him at safety. He’s not a free, like Travis Bell, but he can be a spur or a bandit, a come-off-the-edge, blow-you-up kind of guy. And he has great coverage skills.”

Qudral Forte: “He’s good enough to play major college quarterback.

“We kept this quiet. We kept it from everybody. I gave out other names to divert everyone from this guy. I went to his school last week in Atlanta, Ga., and slipped around the side to talk to him. I didn’t want anyone else to see me. I knew Auburn was coming in that day. You didn’t know in my later years I’m going to be an FBI Agent.”

Troy Gloster: “I recruited his brother, Drew, who played up at Maryland. He’ll probably be in the draft combine. I probably didn’t do as good a job with him as Jeff Casteel did with this guy. But when Drew was in eighth, ninth, 10th, 11th grade, yours truly, every time I called Drew, I talked to Troy. Always recruit the little brother.”

Bruce Irvin: “Big, explosive pass rusher. Dfensive end. We’re absolutely thrilled. This one is the junior college player of the year, a big-time pass rusher. We needed that one.”

Jeremy Johnson: “10.6 100 meters, 24-foot long jump. Quick story: I’m at the table having dinner — I bought mine, they bought theirs;  make sure that’s out there. Some wing place down there in Beaumont. The waiter comes out and I had this on (points to a Flying WV). The guy says, ‘West Virginia?’ I said, ‘Yes, sir.’ I had my glasses on. That’s what threw him off. He said, ‘I watched that game.’ We did the back and forth, back and forth and we’re about ready to close it up and he said, ‘I saw that Gator Bowl.’ I said, ‘I saw that Gator Bowl, too.’ He said, ‘Boy, that’s a heck of a story. Coach Bowden going out like that.’ I said, ‘Yeah, that’s a great story.’ He said, ‘You know, that coach tried to play for Coach Bowden?’ I said, ‘Yes, he did.’ Now the mother and the kids are going from me to him. He was working hard for a tip. He said, ‘Man, he sounds like a heck of a guy.’ I said, ‘He’s a hell of a guy. He played line. Walked on.’ He said, ‘Yeah, that’s a great story.’ So I paid my bill and did my thing and as I was leaving he said, ‘You know, I know football.’ I said, ‘You surely do.'”

Trey Johnson: “He can fly. He may be the fastest man in Virginia. He’s not tall, but he’s tall enough. He can take the ball and when he sticks his foot in the ground, Coach Beatty couldn’t have found a better guy than this one.”

Quantavious Leslie: “He played defensive back at 6-4. He’s a knee-bender, a big spider, a long, long guy who can play ball. He’s a great dude who doesn’t say much, but has a chance to be a great receiver like a guy here years back who went by Double R (Reggie Rembert).”

Deon Long: “He can play both inside and outside. We have some wide receivers, so he’ll probably be more of a slot guy, but he can go. He’ll be an immediate help.”

Ivan McCartney: “Sticks. Heck of a player. Great youngster. Just a quality, quality young man, and, again, as I said before with the Chambers youngster, this was not a package deal. We stood on our own merit with both. Ivan McCartney brigns a lot to the table. I won’t go overboard with him. I’m sure enough will be said and written about him prior to the fall. He’ll have a hard time living up to that billing, but he can be special.”

Doug Rigg: “This guy’s fast. He can play the run and he will hit you.”

Jewone Snow: “Going into the Canton McKinley area, going into that young man’s home — his dad is Garland Rivers, who played at Michigan; his uncles played in Big Ten country — was a chore, but Jeff Mullen did a great job.”

Quinton Spain: “I saw him, along with Coach Beatty, play a basketball game in Richmond and he put up 30 points of 70 and he had the softest left-handed baby hook I’ve seen in years. He can bat balls. He can alley-oop. The guy’s acrobatic and he went out of the game once for a very short time in the third quarter.”

Wes Tonkery: “This young man gets top billing. He’s a remarkable youngster who plays very, very well and reminds me of a defensive back here years ago, one of Coach Nehlen’s first recruits (Steve Newberry), who’s now a car salesman down the road in Peterstown, W.Va.”

Marquis Wallace: “He might be the best student of the game we’ve ever recruited. He’s very sharp, very articulate and a big-time studier of the game. He’s really on it and really gets it.”

Avery Williams: “We thought we were going to lose him. He wanted to try to go to school in January and we thought we’d lose him to a school out west (Utah). But we got him to hang in there. He’ll be here May 19. He’s done. He’s ready to go now, but we couldn’t get him in at the start of the second semester.”