An Inside Look: QB's

It's easy to look over the list of players who signed with the Hurricanes. CanesTime.com gives you an inside look at how this year's recruiting class was assembled -- the hits, the misses, the other schools involved, when important things happened along the way, and much, much more. You don't want to miss this!

Covering the Canes, I'm blessed with an opportunity to talk to all the recruits and to see what's really going on. All of this information was obtained through my discussions with the players so there may have been other players involved that I'm not aware of. Enjoy!

Quarterbacks:
The Hurricanes signed three in this year's class and the story of one of them goes back to last year.

Soon after Randy Shannon took over as head coach back in January of 2007, the Hurricanes started recruiting Cannon Smith from a Mississppi high school. He took an official visit to Miami last January before choosing to enroll at Hargrave Military for a semester.

In March. E.J. Manuel claimed to have received a scholarship offer from the Hurricanes -- the first to a quarterback prospect that I was aware of. The next month, Manuel took an unofficial visit to Miami.

Recruiting really heats up in May and it certainly did at the quarterback position for the Hurricanes. Taylor Cook said he received an offer in the early part of the month and committed shortly afterwards. At the time of his commitment, he also claimed offers from Kansas State and SMU. In addition to Cook and Manuel, three other quarterback prospects were hearing from Miami -- Jacory Harris, Chris Wilkes, and Mike Glennon. All three were invited to participate in the team's summer camp in early June. Glennon told us on May 10 that he had received an offer from the Hurricanes just a few days prior.

Harris, Wilkes, Cook, and Glennon all came to the camp. Glennon and Cook already had offers, while Harris and Wilkes were hoping to land them after the camp. It turns out, Harris was offered soon after the camp ended and committed to the Hurricanes on June 12th. He said the offer he received from the Hurricanes was his 13th.

Smith took an unofficial visit to Miami over the summer but said he was still missing an offer from the Hurricanes at the time. Manuel told Scout.com in early June that Miami had missed his final cut and he committed to Florida State in late June. On July 2nd, Glennon announced his commitment to N.C. State.

With Manuel and Glennon off the board by early July, the Canes had commitments from Cook and Harris. Since they were still recruiting Wilkes and Smith, it was clear that they wanted to sign a third one. Both players continued to be recruited by Miami into the fall and it was Smith who received the offer. His coach told Scout.com in early October that Miami had offered and on November 6th, Scout.com broke the story of Smith's commitment to Miami. At the time of his commitment, Smith said he also had offers from Ole Miss, Memphis, and SMU. Wilkes told CanesTime.com soon after that Miami had stopped talking to him after landing the commitment from Smith. Wilkes ended up signing with Ole Miss.

Cook and Smith never considered any other schools following their commitments to Miami. Harris, who was involved in trying to get a lot of local players to join him at Miami, took official visits with teammate Tommy Streeter to Boston College and Oregon but he made it clear that his commitment to Miami was strong from the day it happened.

Harris and Smith enrolled into school for the spring semester in January, while Cook will arrive sometime this summer.