TCU landed another weapon for Kendal Briles’ offense on Thursday with the addition of Ed Small. The three-star receiver from Austin (Texas) Anderson chose TCU over offers from Arizona State, Baylor, Cal, Texas Tech, UTSA and Houston. Originally a baseball commit to the University of Texas, Small chose to pursue football in the last year.
At 6-feet, 204 pounds, Small is ranked as the No. 37 wide receiver in the nation and No. 45 overall prospect in Texas, according to 247Sports. Though other schools entered the picture, TCU was around from the beginning and showed the most consistent effort. Small told 247Sports that the effort from the coaches to show they believed in him.
“I feel like it was a long time coming,” he said. “They were the first ones to ever believe in me and start recruiting me. The coaches were all awesome, and it felt like a great environment whenever I’ve been up there. It feels like home.”
Small took off after his sophomore season where he caught 50 passes for 1,164 yards and 15 touchdowns, but the recruiting attention never came that spring. After attending a TCU camp in the summer, Small was offered and his recruitment picked up. He followed that up with a junior season where he caught 77 passes for 1,122 yards and 19 touchdowns.
“I had a good sophomore year but I didn’t really start getting recruited in the spring after that year,” Small said. “I went to a camp in July at TCU and I did pretty well. That kind of sparked it all. It got real when I made the decision to decommit from Texas (baseball). I was putting all of my focus into playing football and that’s when I knew what I wanted to do.”
TCU assistants Mark Tommerdahl and Doug Meacham headed up the recruitment for the Horned Frogs. Though he’s only committing to play football at this point, the coaches have told him that the option to play baseball is there for him if he chooses.
“I’m just committing to play football, but the coaches have been great,” he said. “They told me that if I ever wanted to try baseball they weren’t going to stop me. It’s for football right now, but if I wanted to, I could explore the baseball option as well.”
Small spoke with Meacham about taking his official visit to Fort Worth. Though he doesn’t have one nailed down yet, he’s working one of their weekends in June around his summer sports schedule.
“There are three dates in June that coach Meacham told me about last night,” he said. “I’m doing one of those. I’m playing 7-on-7 this summer, so I don’t know which weekend it will be, but it will be one of those three. I’m locked in with them and I’m going to go there, so I think everything else is pretty much done.”
