Recruiting on the High Seas // OL James Polk

In somewhat of a surprise, Texas Tech and the Captain received another verbal commitment, the Red Raiders second one in the week, but this one was a little different and without as much fanfare.  Alief Elsik offensive lineman James Polk committed to Texas Tech on Wednesday and I sat in front of my computer for a full hour to find something on this newest commitment, not this guy.

The Measurables:

via a.espncdn.com

James Polk Position: OL Rivals Profile Scout Profile - None ESPN Profile 40 Grade Ht: 6'6" Wt: 290 lbs Forty: 5.60 secs High School: Alief Elsik (Houston, TX)

Join me after the jump for everything I could find (or couldn't find) on James Polk.

The Film:

Nothing.  Absolutely nothing that I can find anywhere.  There's probably film on the subscription sites, but I can't find anything for free that doesn't have anything to do with the 11th president of the United States.

The Scouting Report:

As you can tell, there's no evaluation of Polk by any of the websites, and when I looked last night, Scout didn't even have a profile on him.  This may be one of the more "unknown" players that I've seen Texas Tech offer in quite some time.  In fact, Polk did not make this website's 2008 all district team and Polk did not make Texas HS Football's list of District 18-5A players to watch in 2009, despite five of his teammates making the list.

Thank goodness LAJ's Don Williams talked with Polk last night and we have this bit:

Polk, who said he is 6-foot-7 and 290 pounds, plays tackle for Elsik, a District 18-5A team that finished 3-5 last season. He’s also projected as a tackle by the Raiders. Besides Tech, Polk has scholarship offers from Grambling and Texas-El Paso and drew interest from Baylor, Colorado, Kansas and Houston.

Polk’s father, James Sr., was an all-conference defensive lineman, listed at 6-11, on Eddie Robinson’s Grambling teams in the 1980s. He played for the Tigers’ "Trees of Terror" defense, a unit known for sending imposing defensive linemen to the NFL.

Not much of a scouting report, but we can draw a couple of things from this, in that Polk comes from a family of football, and his father is a giant . . . 6'11"?  Seriously, a defensive tackle that's 6'11"?  That's crazy.  The second thing to note is that the early teams are obviously a tier below Texas Tech and Polk was starting to draw interest from bigger schools.  Texas Tech perhaps saw this and decided that it would be best to offer and knock one more guy off their list.

Offensive line coach Matt Moore was apparently instrumental in recruiting Polk, and he had this to say about Moore:

"Coach Moore seems like a dedicated coach that will help me not just on the football field but in my studies also,’’ Polk said.

And as was the case with Corker, academics played a part in the recruiting process:

"I was doing a lot of research on Texas Tech,’’ Polk said Thursday. "They have a real good football program and also (offer) sociology. I want to major in sociology, and they have a good graduation rate — about 80 percent, one of the best in the Big 12. I really like that.’’

James, welcome to Texas Tech and Git Your Guns Up!