New Recruit: Wes Lunt

Wes Lunt - New Starting QB at OSU?

Mike Gundy is to quarterbacks as David Kahn is to point guards. The much-maligned Timberwolves GM has taken all kinds of heat in the last few years for creating a roster nearly 1/3 full of floor generals. Gundy hasn’t matched him quite yet (that would mean 30 QBs (roughly) would be walking around campus, but he’s not exactly rationing QB scholarships either. Not after the Bobby Reid catastrophe anyway. Here’s your quick rundown:

Seniors – Brandon Weeden
Juniors – Ryan Howard
Sophomores – Clint Chelf and Johnny Deaton
Redshirt Freshmen – Nathan Sorenson
Freshmen – JW Walsh
Recruits – Wes Lunt

I’m guessing the two names on there you’re unfamiliar with are Ryan Howard and soon-to-be-Cowboy, Wes Lunt. Howard is a West Texas A&M transfer who threw for exactly 0 yards in an Oklahoma State spring game that featured 870 of them. Lunt, on the other hand, is a willowy 6’6 gem from Rochester, IL. The heir apparent to…well who IS he the heir apparent to?

Scout.com (who ranks him as the 20th bext QB in the country) reports that he has a 33” vertical to go with his tremendous right arm. Lamar Odom has a 32” vertical so considering how not fleet-footed he is (see video below) this might be, um, extending reality by a few inches, but the point is he’s a great athlete who actually made two trips to Stillwater, OK: the first to visit and the second to give his word to Mike Gundy in person.

Lunt had offers from Boston College, Michigan State, Illinois (most notably), and Wisconsin (where strong-armed athletic quarterbacks go to die). He chose OSU at least partly because, as he says, “When we went down there, my family and I kind of fell in love with it. We liked the direction the program was going. We liked the quarterback situation.” The question: does JW Walsh still like the quarterback situation?

Okay back to how Lunt fits in big picture. He’s not as highly touted as Walsh was (only the 8th best pro-style QB on Rivals and a 4-star on 247 Recruiting) but according to this article he loves the chaotic nature of the no-huddle hurry-up offense that Gundy is so fond of. And he’s a proven winner (like Walsh) who just led his team through an undefeated state title season mostly by throwing for 3,136 yards and 30 TDs.

I think there’s probably going to be a stop-gap season next year in which Clint Chelf or Johnny Deaton holds down the fort before Walsh and Lunt battle it out in 2013 for the starting job. To be honest, none of the four really excite me that much. I’m semi-partial to Chelf for now if only because he seems to grasp the concept of OSU’s offense and has mastered it to the point that most of it has slowed down for him.

Lunt looks to me like a homeless homeless man’s Peyton Manning in the video below. Not very athletic (I might bet my life against the 33” vertical) and doesn’t throw the best ball, but it’s always where you want it: in the receivers’ hands and headed towards the end zone.

He also hopefully gave a bit of foreshadowing as the Cowboys continue to try and build a Midwestern athletic empire: “It was the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make. There was nothing that pushed me away from Illinois. I just liked Oklahoma State better.”

For those who don’t have all day to troll the highlights of a 17-year old: start at 3:15 and watch the next two throws. Top shelf.

Also if you have time, Here’s a fun interview with Lunt.