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The Utah St. Aggies have finally picke up athlete Chase Christiansen (Tooele, Utah/Stansbury High School) on Tuesday. The 6'2" 220 pound athlete plays both quarterback and linebacker for his high school, but he will move permanently to the defensive side of the ball in college.
Christiansen runs the triple option at his high school and that is the main reason he will move to the defensive side of the ball. However, running a triple option attack means that Christiansen has a lot of speed and that will come in good as he plays linebackers for Utah State, a position that the school is becoming known for.
Christiansen had interest to play quarterback for Navy and Georgia Tech, but his only offers came from Southern Utah, Utah and Utah State. The decision to become an Aggie was the chance to play for an up and coming program:
"It just seems like Utah State is on the way up, and I want to be a part of it," Christiansen said. "The coaching staff is phenomenal - they don't really sit back and have their hands in their pockets or anything. You can see they have a passion for coaching, and obviously they've had success with that recently."
While he will play defense, his junior year saw him rack up over 1,600 total yards to go along with 19 rushing and 11 passing touchdowns. On defense he averaged just over five tackles a game, and did manage to pick off one pass.
The biggest detail to come out of Christiansen committing to Utah State is that Matt Wells' staff was able to go head -to-head against Utah and came away victorious. This may not happen with more high profile recruits, but being able to get an in-state kid to got to the Mountain West and not the Pac-12 is a huge victory.
Here are highlights of Christiansen: