With only three days until national signing day, Cincinnati added a quality receiver on Sunday when Pike High School’s Anthony McClung informed Bearcat Lair that he has switched his verbal commitment from Louisville to the two time defending Big East champions. McClung officially visited Cincinnati January 29-31.

The newest Bearcat will now continue his playing career with Pike teammate Dyjuan Lewis, who is also verbally committed to the Bearcats. Pike’s head coach, Derek Moyers, compared his two stars.

“He’s a totally different receiver than Dyjuan,” said Moyers. “Anthony’s probably your prototypical slot receiver type kid with great quickness. He was the fastest athlete on our team and ran a 4.29 for us.” McClung said his electrical time was 4.38 seconds.

Moyers continued. “He’s a very versatile player. He’s probably best suited for playing the inside receiver’s spot, but he can play outside as well. He’s just a tremendous athlete and has a 36 or 37 inch vertical jump. He returns kicks; he returns punts, and for us, he was also our ‘wildcat’ quarterback. We put him back there to get the ball into his hands right away and let him run around.”

According to his head coach, McClung will bring an array of talents to Cincinnati

“You will be hard pressed to find another kid that ran the ball, caught the ball, threw the ball, returned a kick and returned a punt all in a single game.”

With earlier offers from only MAC schools like Ball State, Akron and Ohio University, Moyers was asked why his 6’/165 pounder had been so overlooked by BCS schools until just recently.

“The big thing on Anthony was his grade situation,” said Moyers. “His grades were not where they needed to be, but again to the kid’s credit, he prepared himself for the ACT by getting a tutor and doing some other stuff to get a qualifying score. Once he got qualified, I was making phone calls.”

And those calls brought results with offers from Louisville and Cincinnati as well as intense interest from West Virginia and Purdue prior to McClung’s verbal commitment to the Cardinals on January 17. McClung wasn’t positive, but he thought the Mountaineers may have also offered him a scholarship.

The Indiana standout said he improved his ACT score to a 19 and has upped his core GPA to 2.4.

McClung was asked why he decided to change his verbal pledge after only two weeks.

“I didn’t understand what Louisville was trying to do. At first they tried to change my position. Then they were talking to me about trying to greyshirt.”

Although not nearly as big as the 6’ 3’/185 pound Lewis, McClung has shown incredible durability for his size.

“Anthony played for us for three years, and that kid never missed a down let along a game. He works really hard in the weight room with his strength,” said Moyers. “But a part of that too is his quickness, he doesn’t take many big hits, and he’s smart. He knows when to get down and when to get out of bounds.”