FSU Seminoles

Thomas Holley’s recruitment has been a lot like his most recent visit.

The ESPN 150 defensive tackle out of Brooklyn (N.Y.) Abraham Lincoln was at Penn State for the annual spring game, which was hampered by every weather condition imaginable.

“It did a little bit of everything -- rain, snow, everything -- it was crazy,” Holley said.

The first few months of his recruitment have been the same. Holley, No. 93 in the ESPN 150, has seen it all in a short time. He went from basketball prospect to first-year football player to playing just a handful of games to landing his first offer. Now he is an Under Armour All-American with more than 20 offers.

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ATHENS, Ga. -- Outside linebacker Jacob Pugh (Tallahassee, Fla./Godby) isn’t exactly sure of how many offers he has. The 6-foot-3, 220-pound junior has not counted them. Once he had received over 30 offers to the top programs in the nation, there really seemed no point in doing so. Pugh is more concerned about the five that he has on top.

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Thomas Holley (Brooklyn, N.Y./Abraham Lincoln) grew tired of the questions after every basketball game.

Inevitably, someone would stroll up to him on the hardwood and ask if he played football. Underclassmen weren't supposed to be so big, they'd say. And at about 250 pounds, they sure weren't supposed to move that fast.

"I kept saying no, that I didn't play football, and they'd just look at me funny," Holley said with a laugh. "They're like, 'Stop playing with me.' That's always how it's been for me, everywhere I go. So when I started thinking about it, people were all like, 'You should play football.' "

Football was always a lingering curiosity for the ESPN Watch List prospect, who took up the sport less than a year ago. The defensive tackle played basketball since third grade, and he always wondered about the sport. But his mother wasn't a fan of him playing such a rough-and-tumble game.

Holley didn't press the issue because he was over the league's weight limit in middle school anyway. He couldn't play football if he was over 185 pounds -- and he towered over most of his classmates at 6-foot, 230. But when fan after fan kept approaching him after those high school games, Holley couldn't resist.

He had to try it out. He wasn't even sure if he'd like it -- but what did he have to lose? He recruited his uncle to help persuade his mother into allowing him to play toward the end of his sophomore year. Scholarship offers weren't on his mind at that point, so he just focused on maintaining his weight by shedding fat and adding muscle.

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Jermaine Eluemunor (Scranton, Pa./Lackawanna) awoke to a ringing phone around 6:30 a.m. Tuesday, assuming it was a premature alarm. But when he rolled over to turn his cell off, he noticed it was actually someone calling.

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Only three years into his football career, Paramus (N.J.) Catholic offensive tackle Juwann Bushell-Beatty was not too worried about when his first offer would come. He was still new to the game and figured at some point the colleges would come.

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PITTSBURGH -- At the beginning, all of the local usual suspects were on 2014 two-way lineman Alex Bookser (Pittsburgh/Mt. Lebanon). Maryland, Pittsburgh, Rutgers and West Virginia were among the first schools to offer.

But right before the contact period ended, new Florida State assistant coach Sal Sunseri came through Mount Lebanon and had good news for Bookser.

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Cornerback D'Andre Payne just picked out a new high school -- Washington (D.C.) Friendship Collegiate -- and he's also picked out some favorite colleges.

The ESPN Watch List prospect transferred from Howard D. Woodson just last week and was a little groggy while he adjusted to the longer school day. But his recruitment's just beginning to come into focus.

Seven schools are currently standing out, and Payne said he might even have an early favorite.

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PITTSBURGH -- It is not often a high school program can boast producing two NFL quarterbacks, let alone have two quarterbacks that have thrown for more than 4,000 yards in a single season and play in multiple Pro Bowls.

That high school would be Pittsburgh Central Catholic, and those two quarterbacks are Dan Marino and Marc Bulger.

Perry Hills and Tino Sunseri are the latest quarterbacks to graduate from the school and both spent 2012 on scholarship at a BCS program as well.

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SAN ANTONIO -- ESPN 150 outside linebacker Mike Mitchell (Plano, Texas/Prestonwood Christian) isn’t big on speaking publicly. He’d rather let his game do the talking -- and it speaks volumes.

On Monday, the 6-foot-5, 222-pound linebacker officially confirmed that he will announce his college plans during Saturday’s U.S. Army All-American Bowl. Oregon, Texas A&M and Ohio State are his three finalists.

Mitchell said all three schools -- and even a fourth, Oklahoma -- had their positive qualities throughout his recruiting process. It was a feeling of comfort, however, that seemed to win him over.

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Kevin Mouhon (Norcross, Ga./Norcross) is just another one of the extremely talented prospects inside the Blue Devils' program. His teammates, Myles Autry and Lorenzo Carter, already have a bunch of offers too.

But 6-foot-1, 210-pound junior linebacker got another ringing endorsement this week when Florida State offered him.

"I found out from my coaches," he said. "I was surprised, but I was happy. I had been there for a camp over the summer. Their school, their team, is pretty good."

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New York is a basketball city, but in the small borough of Staten Island, football is on the rise. In the 2013 class, that is due in large part to a handful of talented prospects, including dynamic receiver Malique Belfort (Staten Island, N.Y./Tottenville).

Through eight games, Belfort has 45 catches for 830 yards and nine touchdowns while rarely playing all four quarters. Major BCS programs have taken notice, and he holds offers from 14 schools with Arizona State, Michigan State and Penn State among them.

A handful of programs continue to show interest, including Florida State, which recently offered his teammate Augustus Edwards, a running back committed to Syracuse.

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D'Andre Payne (Washington, D.C./H.D. Woodson) expected a cheering sea of white-wearing fans and chills when he stepped through Penn State's south tunnel Saturday.

He said he wasn't disappointed -- but the crowd still caught him off guard.

When he emerged from the tunnel, he heard a chant of two familiar words: "D'Andre Payne! D'Andre Payne!" some screamed, goading the 2014 cornerback to commit to Penn State.

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