Texas wideout chooses UCLA over UT

Ryan Newsome threatened to shock the college football world earlier this week, and when it came down to decision time Friday afternoon, the three-star wide receiver did just that.

The 5-foot-10, 175-pound wideout picked a UCLA hat over a Texas one at his burnt orange-leaning Aledo (Texas) High School, proving many recruiting experts wrong.

"Man, it just felt like home," Newsome said of why he chose UCLA to BruinSportsReport.com. "I felt something that was different. Something that was different and that I felt will be pretty cool just going against the grain from what everybody thought would happen."

Newsome admitted his parents wanted him at Texas. He also admitted everybody from recruiting websites, to message boards, to people in his hometown thought he'd be a Longhorn on Friday.

But his bond with Jim Mora, and the doggedness UCLA's head man showed when recruiting him, proved to be too much for the hometown Longhorns.

"The relationship I have with those coaches went far beyond the relationship I had with any others," Newsome said of the Bruins. "They always made me a priority in their class and they told me they were going to make me a priority ever since they offered me in my junior year. So it meant a lot to me for them to stick to it. They never wavered one bit and that really meant a lot to me."

Newsome now provides the Bruins with a dynamic playmaker type that Mora has lacked since the day he took over in Westwood. A 10.38 100-meter sprinter, the Aledo (Texas) star will finally give Mora and Noel Mazzone a gamebreaking F-back that can truly stretch defenses.

"Coach Mora told me I wasn't redshirting even if I wanted to redshirt," Newsome said with a laugh. "They want to play me as a freshman and they feel like I'm that immediate impact guy that they need right away. They need me and coach Mora told me he didn't bring me in to sit, he brought me in to play. He doesn't tell that to everybody and I feel like they really need me there and he's going to make it a point to get the rock in my hands. They haven't had a guy like me since he's been there, so it's really important for him to gab me and he did, so I'm going to make some stuff happen."

Newsome was slated to have an in-home visit with Texas head coach Charlie Strong next Tuesday, but the three-star said that visit is off now.

He's all UCLA, he said.

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