After the William Ming commitment, we now have our second big commitment of the evening. Gerald West, the 5'10 and 170 pound cornerback out of Mobile, has committed to Alabama.

West is a three-star by both recruiting services, and has seen his status depressed a bit by questionable academics. Going into his senior season, West only had a 2.5 core GPA, and had not yet taken the ACT, thus making him an academic question mark. West, however, took the ACT in June and just received his results. He made a 20 on the ACT, and as a result he is now in good academic standing. All he needs at this point is to pass his classes his senior season, and with his academic status in good standing, we took his commitment this evening.

Despite a bit of a middling reception from the recruiting services due to his academics, the top programs were going hard after West. He's an extremely athletic kid, running a 4.4 in the 40 at a recent combine, and he is technically sound as well. He had offers from just about every SEC school, including Alabama, Auburn, LSU, Florida, South Carolina, Mississippi State, and others. He's a talented athlete who is a big pick-up.

Once West got his academic situation taken care of, this one became a bit of a no-brainer for us. We were his big leader for some time, and probably would have taken his commitment much earler, but Saban is just not going to take questionable academic cases. With the academic situation resolved, we had an opportunity to pick up a very good cornerback prospect, and further lock up Mobile to boot. Again, it was a no-brainer.

With West now on board, that will effectively end our search for cornerbacks in this class. We were going to sign two cornerbacks all along, and with West in the bag our attention is now directly focused on Dre Kirkpatrick. We'll probably have to wait until National Signing Day, but we should land the Gadsden star and bring in another very impressive DB class.