Tuesday marked National Signing Day, where high school football players around the nation signed letters of intent deciding where they would be playing next season.

The Panthers signed a total of 10 players to become a part of head coach Dino Babers’ first team next season.

The first two players to sign were linebacker Jake McNair and wide receiver Keiondre Gober.

McNair, who originally committed to Eastern back in October, comes from duPont Manual High School in Louisville, Ky. McNair, who had 87 tackles in his senior season, helped the DuPont Manual team that finished sixth in the state of Kentucky in rushing defense.

Keiondre Gober, who comes from Frendship High School in Lubbock, Texas, will join the Panthers not only as a wide receiver, but will also look to assist the team as a punt returner or kick returner.

Gober also played defensive back on Brad Davis’ Frendship team. He was an All-District, All-City and All-South Plaines player

Also joining Gober from Frendship High School will be running back Bobby Huey. Huey recorded 1,640 rushing yards and 15 touchdowns in his senior year. Babers called Huey a bigger running back with excellent speed and hands.

“From the state of Texas, we had a running back, Bobby Huey,” Babers said. “He’s a bigger style back. 5-foot-11, 210 (pounds), we anticipate him being a 230-235 pound back that can go downhill for us. He has excellent speed, excellent hands.” Joining Huey from the state of Texas will be defensive end Tyler Paulsen. Paulsen was the MVP of the Texas 4A state championship game, which his own Lake Travis High School won for the fifth straight year. Lake Travis High School, located in Austin, Texas, is the only school in Texas high school history to win that many consecutive championships. Paulsen finished his senior season with 87 tackles, 56 solo tackles and 11 sacks.

“He’s from a championship 4A football team that’s won five state championships in the state of Texas. It’s never been done before,” Babers said.

Another defensive player joining the Panthers is defensive athlete Ryan Meyer from Chicago’s Marist High School. Meyer played wide receiver, running back, defensive back and kick returner in high school, leading his team to three straight playoff appearances.

“He can play all the positions: safety, linebacker, we don’t know where we’re going to play him at yet, but we like the things that he does on defense,” Babers said. “He runs, he hustles to the ball; when he gets there, he’s in a bad mood, and he separates people from the football. So he’s the type of defensive player we’re looking (for) here and we’re excited about having him.”

Kendal Butler will be another defensive back from the state of Illinois joining the Panthers. Butler played for Cumberland High School, where he played both quarterback and defensive back. A member of the National Honor Society, he intercepted 25 passes in his career at Cumberland.

The final defensive back added to the Panthers’ National Signing Day class was Micah “Pono” Choy of Honolulu, Hawaii. Choy was named to the ESPN All-Hawaii team in his senior season.

“Pono Choy is one of those players that you look at and you can’t understand, you can’t explain why he does the things that he does on the football field; but all he does is make plays and wins games,” Babers said.

Babers said he hopes Choy will influence future Hawaii recruits to come to Eastern.

“We’re excited about having him,” he said. “He’s from a school with a great football tradition and a great academic tradition, Kamehemeha High School. He’s one of the players that we think is going to help to start moving some players in that direction from our area.”

On the offensive side of the ball, the Panthers have added two linemen to the roster.

“We have two offensive linemen in this class, Evan Kanz and Jimmy Lowery. Both of those young guys are big-bodied guys, they’re 6-foot-4, 6-foot-5, 270, 280 pounds,” Babers said. “So that’s kind of the frame that we’re looking for is those wider, bigger guys that can drop the blade on people.”

Kanz comes from Wisconsin’s Luxemburg-Casco High School, where he was the No. 3 rated lineman in the state.

Lowery comes to the Panthers from Lombard’s Montini Catholic High School, who won the IHSA Class 5A championship this season.

Also coming to the Panthers from Montini Catholic will be wide receiver Anthony Taylor. Taylor had 59 catches and 957 yards in his senior season, while also catching eight touchdowns.

Babers said that though he still has scholarships avalible, he and his staff will be selective in their process.

“We could still add to this group, but we’re going to be very, very selective,” he said. “I think it’s a situation where we have extra scholarships; we don’t want to panic, we want to be very thorough in our evaluations and we want to be slow to pull the trigger on things.”

The class has four signees from Illinois, three from Texas and one each from Hawaii and Kentucky. Still, Babers insists that his main areas of recruitment are in Chicago and St. Louis.

“Obviously our recruiting base is going start in the state of Illinois, and that means the city of Chicago,” he said. “Outside the city of Chicago and this state, St. Louis is our main area we go to next, and then we start working out from the center of the state of Illinois. We always want this to be home, but we’re looking for good football players wherever we can find them.”

When recruiting this year’s class, Babers said he did not look at the film from last year’s season to see where he could find improvements.

“Did not look at the film from last year’s team at all,” he said. “I wanted to keep a clean slate so I could judge all these young men on a brand new, clean slate.”

Babers said he consulted with coach Mike Lynch on what certain areas should be addressed.

“Coach Lynch told us the areas he felt that we should address,” he said. “After we addressed those areas, we went, for the lack of a better term, for the best player available.”

Some of the players targeted were also on his radar while he was still on the staff at Baylor.

“There’s no question that some of those guys were on the list at Baylor,” he said. “Really, I want to give some kudos; most of this class has been recruited by Coach (Mike) Lynch, Coach (Andrew) Sowder, Coach (Brian) Callahan, and Coach (Sterlin) Gilbert.”

Babers and his team will take the field for the first time on Aug. 30 against Southern Illinois-Carbondale at O’Brien Field.

Dominic Renzetti can be reached at 581-7942 or [email protected].