Hopefully a sign of good things. Coach Walker has continued to bring in some big names.


Head coach Randy Walker and the Northwestern University football program announced today the signing of 21 football recruits to National Letters of Intent.

Walker's fourth recruiting class as the Wildcats' head coach again represents another strong national class with multiple signees from California, Florida, Michigan and Texas. In all, the Wildcats signed student-athletes from 12 states. Northwestern signed four student-athletes from California and Michigan, and three from Texas.

"Because of our academic prestige and outstanding quality of life, Northwestern is an attractive place for young people," said Walker. "We found that again when recruiting this year's class. We went coast-to-coast-from California to New Jersey and Texas to Wisconsin-and our recruits who visited were impressed with our program and our student-athletes.

"As always, our coaches did a tremendous job building relationships, and our players did a great job hosting and selling our program."

This year's class is balanced with offensive and defensive players-11 on offense and 10 on defense.

"Our goal was to recruit a broad-based recruiting class, which we did," said Walker. "We didn't focus on any specific position. It might look like we took a large number of wide receivers, but we took five very good athletes who are capable of helping us in a lot of different places."

Signing Day Notes:
* The breakdown on NU's signees, by position: tight end (1), quarterback (1), wide receiver (5), offensive line (4), defensive line (4), linebacker (4), defensive back (2).

* NU signed a pair of players from the same high school: wide receivers Sam Cheatham and Reggie McPherson of San Leandro (Calif.) High, and wide receiver T.J. Jones and offensive lineman Fred McConnell of Southfield-Lathrup (Mich.) High.

* Northwestern signee T.J. Jones is celebrating his 18th birthday today (Feb. 5). Two other signees, Ryan Black and Fred McConnell, were born on the same date-Christmas Day in 1984.

* Wide receiver Kim Thompson becomes the third wideout from Detroit's Country Day School to sign with Northwestern in the past few years. Ashton Aikens signed with the Wildcats in 2001 and Brandon Horn signed a year ago. Both Aikens and Horn played as true freshmen.

* The three signees from Texas now push the Wildcats' current number of Lone Star state players to 10, second-most behind Illinois (17).