I don't know that it's so much we liked Stoll over Fant. Fant had always told the recruiting sites he didn't care if he played TE or DE - I don't know if he told the coaches anything different. We are in dire need of DEs so we started out recruiting him there. Plus, we had Bubak committed as a TE so the need wasn't as great there. Then we got Stoll as our second TE but by then Fant was looking around. After Bubak de-committed, we told Fant he could play either side.I think we are fine at TE for which Fant wants to play. What I find interesting is that the staff seems to have liked Stoll better than Fant. I know in the grand scheme of things this is only one site's opinion but on 247, Stoll is graded at .8525 and Fant was graded at .8563.
Now, I'm only pointing this out to show that they probably are very similar in talent and ability. So, why do you think the staff likes Stoll over Fant at TE? OR, is it a matter of Stoll committed first so the spot was taken up?
It would be interesting to know of our staff cooled on Fant around the same time Stoll committed.
To me, if there are two players of pretty equal ability, I would prefer to have the local kid. But, sometimes other things play into it that we don't know. I'm not saying it's something like character because i don't know either kid and everything I have seen about Fant is he is actually a pretty smart and mature kid.
So perhaps Stoll committed first so we didn't have as much of a need at TE but I don't know that necessarily means we liked him better than Fant.