Recruiting class features depth at QB

Stare at the positions listed for the football team's 21 signees and it doesn't take long to realize that coach Gerry DiNardo wasn't lying when he said his staff recruited talent over need.\nOf the 21 recruits, 10 play offensive skill positions, including three who play the position requiring the fewest number of players.\nOnly one quarterback plays at a time, but that didn't stop IU from recruiting quarterbacks Jehron Fields, Allen Webb and Graeme McFarland.\nFields, of Chicago, was the first quarterback to give IU a verbal commitment. He committed last fall, but he reconsidered when Cam Cameron was fired in December. Fields considered Bowling Green and Kentucky before signing a letter-of-intent with IU during Wednesday's NCAA signing day.\nThe 6-foot-1 Fields passed for 2,247 yards and 31 touchdowns during his career at Chicago's Morgan Park High School. In 2001, Fields earned Chicago Public League Most Valuable Player honors. \nFields isn't as highly-regarded as Antwaan Randle El was when he arrived at IU in 1997, but Chris Pool, the publisher of poolrecruiting.com, said Fields is a similar type of player.\n"He's very good," said Pool, who lives in the Chicago area. "He has a solid arm, and he can run the ball. He makes a lot of things happen."\nThe IU athletics department's recruiting release lists Field as a quarterback, but several recruiting Web sites list him as a wide receiver. \nWebb, also listed as a quarterback on the release, actually did play some wide receiver for Chatfield (Colo.) High School. He split time between quarterback and wide receiver for a Chatfield team that claimed the Colorado Class 5A title and finished in the top 20 of USA Today's final rankings. Webb, the grandson of Denver Mayor Wellington Webb, compiled more than 1,500 total yards during the 2001 season.\nWebb originally committed to Colorado, but he de-committed earlier this year. Before signing with IU, he also considered Kansas State. \nWebb wasn't the only IU recruit to de-commit from a Big 12 school. \nMcFarland, of Birmingham, Ala., originally committed to Kansas last fall, but he backed away when coach Terry Allen was fired in December and replaced by Oklahoma offensive coordinator Mark Mangino. \nMcFarland also considered Louisville, Vanderbilt, Furman and Harvard, before he was contacted by IU assistant Brian McNeely. McFarland said IU expressed no interest in him until McNeely, who was helping Vanderbilt recruit the quarterback, joined IU's staff last month. McFarland said his final decision came between IU and Furman, a Division 1-AA program.\n"The main reason I choose Indiana is because I wanted to test myself," he said. "I didn't want to go to Furman and do well there, and wonder about what I could've done in the Big Ten."\nOn the field, McFarland passed for more than 4,500 yards as a starter the past two seasons. In 2001, the 6-foot-2 McFarland passed for 2,600 yards as he led Mountain Brook High School to a 10-2 record. Mountain Brook used a four wide-receiver set, and coach Joey Jones said the team's offense was built around McFarland. \n"He had an excellent season," Jones said. "I thought from a maturity standpoint, he improved three-fold from his junior to senior year. If he can make that jump at the next level, he'll be a good player"