La Cueva's Mason Posa collecting Power 5 offers

Mason Posa almost certainly will remember Labor Day 2023 as a major turning point in his recruitment.

The La Cueva High junior linebacker, easily one of the top five prep football players in New Mexico — perhaps even higher than that — began the holiday week holding Division I offers from New Mexico and New Mexico State.

By the time the Bears kicked off on Friday night against Volcano Vista, the 6-foot-3, 207-pound Posa had five additional offers, all from Power 5 programs.

Four of those schools are in the soon-to-be-dissolved Pac-12. Washington was first, and then he gained offers from Cal, Arizona State and Utah.

Washington and Wisconsin offered Posa on Labor Day Monday, with Cal and ASU on Tuesday, and then Utah.

“I don’t really know (why all of them offered me so close to each other),” Posa said. “A lot of those colleges were already following me and keeping up with me, and when they saw the Washington offer, they decided to pull the trigger.”

The four current Pac-12 schools all have left for different conferences starting in 2024.

“I’m really humbled,” Posa said of the burst of recruiting attention. “It’s a blessing for sure.”

UNM and NMSU are “still options,” Posa said.

Arizona State also has offered Posa, a two-time state wrestling champion for the Bears, in that sport. “Wrestling is still an option (for me in college),” Posa said. “So far, football is heavy right now. But i could always change my mind.”

Wrestling, he said, was partially what attracted Wisconsin.

“A lot of those coaches are wrestlers. They love the way I wrestle and they really love wrestlers out there,” said Posa, one of the state’s most accomplished and ferocious tacklers. The Badgers, he added, were going to offer him when he visited the campus later this month, but didn’t wait.

Posa, 17, said he is going to Washington for a campus visit on Sept. 23, when the Huskies play host to Cal.

Posa on his bye week with La Cueva is going to Madison, Wisconsin, the first week of October, when the Badgers face Rutgers.

LONG MEMORIES: It’s been almost exactly a year since the Atrisco Heritage football team beat West Mesa 59-54. For the Mustangs, the rematch can’t come soon enough. It will happen Friday at Nusenda Community Stadium.

The loss last year was the reason West Mesa missed the playoffs and the reason the Jaguars qualified for them.

“We’ve had this game circled on the schedule since we lost last year,” West Mesa quarterback Elijah Brody said. “We definitely want to go and get those guys.”

THIS AND THAT: The Blue-Grey All-American Bowl in suburban Dallas later this year continues to stack invites to New Mexico athletes. Volcano Vista linebacker Kian Vander Wilt, La Cueva receiver Jackson Hix and Albuquerque Academy linebacker Brody Whitaker all have been selected to play, according to the Blue-Grey social media account. … Gadsden on Friday night officially named its home venue Sal Gonzalez Stadium. The naming ceremony coincided with this being the 70th anniversary of the Panthers winning a state title in 1953.