There aren't many players in college football who perfectly fit their names. Army has one.

Trent Steelman.

As in Steel-Man.

The quarterback has started all 25 games during his two-year stay at West Point. Running the option, he takes a beating game in and game out and keeps on ticking.

Last season, Steelman, who has quarterbacked the revival of a football program, ran for 721 yards and 11 touchdowns and threw for 995 yards and seven scores. He did it with a variety of physical ills, but he played.

It all led to offseason shoulder surgery (left, his non-throwing shoulder) that will keep him out of spring ball.

"We are not going to use Trent this spring because he had the shoulder done," coach Rich Ellerson told the Middletown Times Herald-Record.

This will be a different spring for the Black Knights, who will be coming off the program's first winning season and bowl game since 1996. Ellerson's first team was an upset of Navy away from a bowl game (leading at halftime) but Ellerson's second team made it, and then nipped SMU on its home field in the Armed Forces Bowl.

The academies don't officially name their recruiting classes until later because the student-athletes must go through the appointment process. Army's class is not rated high, but there is really no way of measuring a kid who has the heart to commit to this tough college existence and then two years of military service.

TOP OF THE CLASS

DB Addison Holstein (Lecanto High, Lecanto, Fla.) -- No Army football recruit is rated higher than two stars but this kid picked the academy over Stanford. "Pretty much I felt the love from Army," he said of his decision. "The coaches really like me a lot, they really want me to go there. Coach (Clarence) Holmes was my recruiting coordinator, and he's a great man. He called me when he could, to catch up and talk. I really felt the love."

QB AJ Schurr (Libertyville High, Libertyville, Ill.) -- One of four quarterbacks in the class, something coach Rich Ellerson likes to do as he believes in taking a quarterback and perhaps moving him around on the field. "There were probably a couple of things rolled into one," Schurr said of opting for West Point. "The opportunities I have going there, the education, and the opportunity to play at a high Division I level. And the alumni are second to none. It seems like an unbelievable fraternity."

LB Dan Muenzer (Elgin High, Elgin, Ill.) We don't know where this kid will fit in and he was headed for the Army Prep School, but we do love his self-evaluation. Asked to describe himself, Muenzer, recruited by a list of school that reportedly included Notre Dame, said, "I'm not big on scouting myself, but if I could use one word to describe me I'd say physical. I just like to hit people. There's not much more to it. I like to blitz, too, just manhandle people."

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