Malik Andrews, Thomas Holley and Khendell Puryear signed their National Letters of Intent on Wednesday (pictured with assistant coach Joe Desiena, principal Ari Hoogenboom, and Shawn O’Connor). Photo courtesy of Lincoln High School.
Wednesday was National Signing Day, the day high school football players can officially commit to play college football next season and Lincoln’s Thomas Holley, Erasmus Hall’s Curtis Samuel, and Poly Prep’s Jay Hayes headlined a group of Brooklyn players that will play Division-I football next season.
Samuel and Hayes made their verbal commitments months ago choosing to go to Ohio State and Notre Dame respectively. Holley’s situation was different because he only started playing football last season. He initially made a verbal commitment to Penn State, but after its coach Bill O’Brien was hired by the Houston Texans, he decided to decommit and instead went with Florida.
Holley had two teammates sign NLI on Wednesday — Khendell Puryear and Malik Andrews. Andrews, a wide receiver, signed with American International College and Puryear signed with Central Connecticut. The two nearly ended up at the same school though as Central Connecticut only ended up on Puryear’s radar within the last two weeks.
Rossomando, who went to high school at Port Richmond in Staten Island, eventually landed at Central Connecticut and even at a different school he still had interest in Puryear. He also brought with him a coach from the University at Albany that also had interest in Puryear. Once they reached out to him he quickly made up his mind and decided to forgo AIC and went with CCSU instead.
There were quite a few others from Brooklyn that signed including Erasmus Hall’s Jose Duncan, who signed with the University of Rhode Island, and Darin Peart, who signed with Stony Brook. Sheepshead Bay’s Aking Gaston signed with Auburn, Brooklyn Tech’s Deon Mash and New Utrecht’s Richard Wright both signed with C.W. Post and Mark Goldman, an offensive lineman from Midwood, signed with Harvard.
There are expected to be a number of other signings in the upcoming weeks as some kids are waiting on report cards or other eligibility requirements. Dashawn Brice Expect Erasmus Hall’s Khalil Lewin and Lincoln’s Leroy Hancle to sign somewhere. Antoine Holloman should sign at Morrisville along with teammate Tyler Cowley, who has already committed there, and Dashawn Brice from Boys and Girls High School.
I will keep you updated on those possible signings as well as any others I may have missed or materialize.