Lights announce three stellar football transfers

It's time for prospective college football players to start making the difficult decision of where to continue their football career. Three such players have already decided that they will continue playing football at Montana State University-Northern.

On Wednesday afternoon, the MSU-Northern coaching staff announced the first portion of its 2012 recruiting class with three transfers. All three new Lights are currently enrolled at Northern and will participate in spring ball.

Northern has added a pair of transfer offensive linemen as well as a linebacker.

Headlining the group is 6-3, 290-pound left tackle Patrick Kiser of American Canyon, Calif. Kiser comes to MSU-N from Solano Junior College where he was a two-time all-conference and two-time First Team All-State Juco selection in California. He was also voted Solano's MVP this past season, and is expected to start right away for an MSU-N offensive line which graduated four starters this past season.

"Patrick will have an immediate impact on our offense and will be our starting left tackle heading into spring ball," MSU-N head coach Mark Samson said. "He is a kid that we targeted right away in recruiting and we are very fortunate that he decided to transfer here and become a Northern Light. He has very good feet for his size and we are excited to see him compete on the field this spring."

Also bolstering the offensive line is 6-4, 275-pound lineman Jordan Sharp of Fresno, Calif. Sharp comes to MSU-N from Fresno City JC in Fresno, Calif., where he was a two-time all-conference performer at guard.

"Jordan will be a great addition to our offensive line this spring. We expect Jordan to be a key contributor at either guard or tackle. Jordan has great size and is a very hard worker," Samson said.

On the defensive side of the ball, the Lights added an NCAA DII dropdown in linebacker Kyle Wagar (6-3, 215). Wagar comes to Havre from successful Central Washington University where he redshirted last season. He will have four years at Northern.

"Kyle is a very good athlete and is very strong in the weight room," Samson said. "He was a safety in high school and put on some very good weight and was moved to linebacker at Central Washington. We are very excited to have him join our team and he will hopefully be a key contributor to our linebacker corps this spring and next fall.

"We are very excited to announce the signings of these thee student athletes. We have signed some very talented kids that not only are great athletes but great people as well. We have addressed some immediate needs with these young men and all 3 of them will have the ability to come in and compete right away for playing time. We are extremely excited about the caliber of players that we have brought in," Samson continued. "These players will definitely fill some holes that we have in certain positions and provide some great experience for our team. My son Kyle, who is our recruiting coordinator, worked very hard on all three of these recruits and did a great job getting them signed up and ready to go for this spring. We are very excited about the upcoming season and myself and our staff and players are working very hard to make sure we can build on what we accomplished in 2011 and take the next step which is competing for a championship in 2012."

The Lights also have commitments from a bevy of high school players and are expected to announce another portion of their recruiting class sometime next week.