It was a busy week in Northwestern recruiting, as the Wildcats picked up two commitments — OLB Cameron Queiro and OT/DT Ben Oxley — and had a number of other visitors take in spring practice. Make sure to keep checking our recruiting board for updates.
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Queiro Commits
Come 2014, Northwestern will have two Queiros on its roster. 3-star OLB Cameron Queiro committed to NU over offers from Pittsburgh and Vanderbilt. He will join his brother, Kyle, who is a safety commit in the class of 2013, and will become the third Bergen Catholic (NJ) alum on the team, along with his brother and Cameron Dickerson.
Queiro has been close to committing to NU for awhile. He told us last month that he was 80 percent sure he was going to NU and that his mom already considered him a Wildcat. Now it's official, and unsurprisingly, he had good things to say about the program and the staff.
“They’ve been communicating with me for a really long time,” Queiro said of his recruitment process. “I felt like I could trust them with my life for the next four years. It was time.”
Queiro has been recruited as an outside linebacker, but he has also had experience at safety in high school. That fits the mold of the kind of players Pat Fitzgerald likes to recruit. NU likes to recruit "big safeties who play linebacker," according to Fitzgerald, which is why safety Joseph Jones moved to linebacker this spring and current safety Jimmy Hall has also played linebacker and nickelback. Queiro is a little different because he's coming in as an outside linebacker, but he has a skill set that NU likes in its outside linebackers: fast, athletic and tough.
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Oxley Pledges to NU
Like Queiro, Oxley's verbal commitment was essentially a formality at this point. NU had been his No. 1 school for awhile and he indicated that he could very well commit on his visit to NU's spring practice this weekend. He made it official after his visit, choosing the Wildcats over Illinois, Louisville and some MAC offers.
Oxley played on the offensive line in high school, but at 6-foot-6, 260 pounds, NU prefers to move him to defensive tackle. His combination of size and agility makes him an impressive prospect on defense. Initially, Oxley told us that he preferred to play offensive tackle, but after hearing that he will probably switch to defense to start his NU career, he warmed up to that idea.
“They said It’s probably going to be a defensive tackle,” he said. “But that’s subject to change. Coming into it I was leaning towards offense, but after learning about the other side, I’ll play wherever.”
Given that Fitzgerald is not afraid to change players' positions, Oxley could end up on the offensive side of the ball. But regardless of where he ends up, he has the skill set to be a solid player for NU down the road.
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Other Visitors
After the last two commitments, it may be a little while until NU gets another commitment. Queiro and Oxley's commitments were relatively unexpected, but of the players NU has offered, nobody else sticks out as the obvious pick to be the next commit. However, it was still a busy weekend for the Wildcats, who had a number of recruits in to watch spring practice.
Among those players were wide receiver Avonte Maddox and outside linebacker Brandon Lee. Lee just received his NU offer this weekend, but he's a four-star linebacker who has generated a lot of buzz from high-major programs in the Midwest. Maddox doesn't yet have an offer.