There has been a flurry of activity in SEC recruiting cycles and the LSU Tigers are one of the teams benefiting from the good news. After securing the commitment of 4-star safety Michael Daugherty out of Grayson (Loganville, GA) High School earlier in the week, the Tigers doubled up on 4-star recruits for their class of 2023 on Friday morning.
By Steve Wright
The latest player to pledge his college future to the program that Brian Kelly is building in Baton Rouge is another 4-star safety in Ryan Yaites. Yaites – who looked nailed on to be a Michigan State player up until a week or so ago – is a 6-foot-1, 175 pounder out of Guyer (Denton, TX) High School. He is the more highly regarded of the pair of safeties to commit this week, with a 247Sports Composite ranking as the No. 128 player in the class, the No. 7 safety, and the No. 24 player in Texas.
Yaites fell out with Michigan State when he was rebuffed by the Spartans staff as he wanted to commit during a visit a couple of weeks ago. He released his four finalists on Thursday and then on Friday it was revealed that LSU had beaten Cal, Ole Miss, and Texas Tech as his college of choice.
Yaites ran a low 24-second 200-meter dash as a sophomore. As a junior he mainly played cornerback on the football field, playing it well enough to become a Texas District 5-6A first-team selection. Safeties with cornerback experience are more valuable than ever. Spread sets with four and five wide receivers often leave safeties in one-on-one matchups.
In the first clip in the video below you can see how Yaites will cover like a cornerback. He fights for inside position on the route and then is able to turn and play the ball better than the wide receiver to make an interception for his team. Later plays show Yaites as a player able to diagnose running plays and make a hit in addition to his obvious skills as a coverage player.
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