Recruiting: Quick thoughts from the Top of the Mountains Bowl

I was able to attend the Zions Bank Top of the Mountains Bowl featuring a rematch between Snow College (Ephraim) the #2 ranked team in Jr. College Football and Butler College the #1 team and defending champions in the JUCO ranks. I attended to see a few guys with BYU ties and recruits. Here's what I thought.

- Atem Bol, WR

Bol was watching the game from the stands wearing a Snow Badgers hoodie. He is listed on their roster but I assume he is redshirting this season. I really hope Bol can end up at BYU down the road. He has great size I saw him standing up and the guy is definitely 6'3 or maybe even 6'4. Good size. Hopefully everything is going well for him in school.

- Star Lotulelei, DL

Did not know Lotulelei was on Snow this season until today. Great to see him play first hand. The guy has some great athleticsm, was getting many double teams opening things up for the other DE, Utah commit James Aiono. Coming out of Bingham High, Lotulelei for his physical play and motor, I saw that today. He was listed as a Freshman on the roster so he is probably going to play 2009 at Snow then we will see if he is a prospect in the 2010 class.

- Jordan Brown, DB

Jordan Brown is a prospect who is visiting BYU next week along with many other Junior College players. Brown plays Corner for the Badgers and has D-1 speed but struggles to make tackles. He also returned kicks for Snow and seemed to struggle back there. That might be because of the new field they were playing on which was at the new Rio Tinto RSL Stadium, and that field was not suited for Football in my opinion. So I'm not sure, but I didn't come away overly impressed with Brown.

- Sam Doman, TE

Former BYU and Oregon QB, Sam Doman is on the Badgers roster as a Tight End. Did not see Doman participate today though.

- James Aiono, DE (Utah commit)

I have seen for awhile that Aiono is a 5-star prospect on both Rivals and Scout and I was always skeptical, so I was intrigued to see for myself today if it was legit. Aiono is definitely a D-1 player. He has talent, uses his length well and has a knack for knocking down passes which would probably be a good fit at Utah because it seems thats all Koa Misi and Paul Kruger did late in their season.

Mid-Year Signing Period starts on December 17th and National Letter of Intent Day for Fall enrollees is Wednesday, February 4th, 2009. Not too far away. BYU currently has 16 commitments.