For Tucker, landing top WR Rice could be just tip of the iceberg
B OULDE R » The best part for CU Buffs fans? Landing Jerry Rice’s son was just the tip of the iceberg — on the recruiting trail, at least.
“It’s a significant win,” Brandon Huffman, national recruiting editor at 247Sports, said of CU’s most recent football commitment, Arizona wideout Brenden Rice.
“You look at the schools that CU was up against — at one point, it looked like he was going to Michigan or going to Oregon. There was a lot of buzz for Arizona State, even as recently as (a few) weeks ago. There was a lot of buzz for UCLA, because his older brother (Jerry Rice Jr.) was a walk-on there.”
Huffman said the 6-foot-2 Rice, whose father, Jerry, is the NFL’s all-time career leader in receiving yards, receptions and touchdown catches, wasn’t just the sign of a coup for coach Mel Tucker and the CU staff — it was a sign of their dogged sales persistence compared to Pac-12 peers.
“(Rice) had been linked to a number of schools, and it’s kind of one where Colorado kind of laid there waiting in the weeds,” Huffman said. “Where they really knocked it out of the park was when he took his visit in the spring, they really made an impression.
“And that kind of carried them all through the summer.”
Huffman said there’s a good chance that bringing Rice, a three-star wideout from Chandler, Ariz., on board for the Class of 2020 raises the eyebrows of some other notable national prospects, including four-star defensive end Jason Harris out of Gilbert, Ariz. Harris is scheduled to visit CU on Nov. 9, when the Buffs (3-3, 1-2 Pac-12) host Stanford (3-3, 2-3) at Folsom Field.
“(Rice) does have a lot of physical upside,” Huffman said. “He’s certainly what you would design for an elite-level receiver — good size, good speed, good strength. He also plays a lot of defense, so there’s a lot of positional versatility. Obviously, when you think ‘Rice,’ you think ‘receiver,’ but he’s more versatile as a prospect than just as a receiver. He just needs to be more consistent as a pass catcher.”