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BREAKING: Miami lands top-150 safety James Dunnigan

Stephen Wagner covers recruiting for the University of Miami for On3 Sports and CaneSport. He can be found on Twitter at @stephenwag22 and reached at Stephen.Wagner@On3.com.by: Stephen Wagner14 hours agostephenwagOn3
James Dunnigan 2 copy 1.jpg
(Photo by Chad Simmons/Rivals)

Manhattan (Kan.) four-star top-150 safety James “JJ” Dunnigan Jr. has committed to Miami over Colorado and others, the 6-foot-2, 190-pound defensive back announced Sunday evening.

Dunnigan, who had previously been committed to Kansas since Jan. 2 before decommitting from the Jayhawks last month, is a Kansas State legacy and was previously the Jayhawks’ highest-ranked commit before parting ways with KU Oct. 27. Miami quickly became a team to watch for the No. 140 overall prospect and No. 13 safety in the Rivals Industry Ranking once he announced he was setting official visits to Colorado Oct. 31 and Miami Nov. 15 for this upcoming weekend’s game against NC State.

The Hurricanes offered Dunnigan in February and had some communication with the four-star prospect during the spring, although by mid-summer there wasn’t much buzz around his name in Miami circles. However, contact reopened during October around the time rumors began that he could part ways with Kansas.

It didn’t take long for Miami to become a favorite for Dunnigan.

Dunnigan told CaneSport last week he was high on the Hurricanes thanks to strong recruiting efforts from head coach Mario Cristobal and secondary coach Will Harris, who became heavily involved over the last few weeks. We included him in our list of players who could be next to commit to Miami last Thursday.

“(Miami) has a long history of great DBs, great safeties,” Dunnigan told CaneSport Nov. 4. “They’ve got two good (safeties) this year.”

Dunnigan’s pledge gives Miami 26 commits in this year’s class and two safeties (four-star pledge Cortez Redding being the other). We expect Miami to continue pursuing four-star Clemson decommit Blake Stewart, one of the Hurricanes’ most-valued safety targets, over the coming days and weeks.

CaneSport’s Take

Dunnigan wasn’t a player we started monitoring as a potential addition to Miami’s class until a few weeks ago, but sometimes you get the perfect recruiting storm. Things seemed to work out perfectly between the two sides.

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