Ah, nothing like Buffalo in February

In football recruiting game, Good Counsel’s Ingle gets last-minute offer he can’t refuse from Bulls

One of the programs that saw Ingle as a starting college quarterback was the University of Buffalo, a recent entrant into the Division I-A ranks, but with two signal callers already signed, Ingle’s chances of playing there seemed remote.

That was until both of those would-be Buffalo players decided to break their verbal commitments, sending third-year coach and former Heisman Trophy finalist, Turner Gill, a prolific option quarterback at the University of Nebraska, back on the recruiting trail.

Where he ended up last week was at Ingle’s Germantown residence.

‘‘Turner Gill ... flew in [last] Monday night and offered him a scholarship,” said Good Counsel coach Bob Milloy, who watched Ingle lead his Falcons to a pair of Washington Catholic Athletic Conference final appearances the past two years. ‘‘[Gill] is an option guy and he still runs the heck out of the option. He got a pretty good one in Zach. Zach is extremely fast and he runs hard and he’s very good with play-action passes. This could be a match made in heaven.”

Ingle, who chose Buffalo over Catholic, Salisbury, Shepherd and Youngstown State, is one of several Good Counsel football players who will sign with various colleges Wednesday morning at the school’s new location in Olney. The others are Nick Jenkins (Virginia), Danny Parker (Duke) Kendall Haley (Monmouth), Anthony Wilson (Appalachian State), Pat Wilson (Bridgewater) and Chris Daley (Catholic).

‘‘I’m excited,” said Ingle, who visited Buffalo (2-10 in 2006) this past weekend. ‘‘I can’t wait to get up there and get the playbook. They run a West Coast offense so I’ll get to do both [run and pass]. I like to do both.”

As a senior this past fall, Ingle, who ran the 40-yard dash in 4.57 seconds last summer, completed 69 of 141 passes for 945 yards with seven touchdowns and seven interceptions. He also ran for 389 yards and three scores to lead the Falcons to a 10-2 record and a third straight trip to the WCAC final.

Ingle took over the starting quarterback job three weeks into his junior season and compiled 1,265 passing yards and 13 touchdowns on 80-of-121 passing.

‘‘They recruited me last year but there were two people ahead of me,” Ingle said of Buffalo. ‘‘They de-committed so they started talking to me and offered me a scholarship.”

On the other side of the ball, Haley provided stability in the defensive backfield at the safety position. He picked off a team-best five passes and collected 62 tackles. Those 62 tackles were second best on the team.

Haley joins a Monmouth squad that produced a 10-2 record a year ago in Division I-AA play.

Anthony Wilson, a 6-foot-2, 290-pound defensive tackle, will join an Appalachian State program that has won back-to-back Division I-AA national titles, including a school-record 14 wins this past season. Wilson collected 29 tackles and 2.5 sacks in 2006.

Pat Wilson helped anchor Good Counsel’s punishing offensive line that helped Daley (5-8, 170) produce a team-best 1,212 yards and 12 touchdowns on 156 carries or 7.7 yards per attempt.

Jenkins, one of the area’s most sought-after recruits, committed to Virginia this past summer and the two-way All-Gazette first-team lineman finished with a team-high 95 tackles with 8.5 sacks. Parker, a tight end⁄defensive end, grabbed six passes for 114 yards and recorded 41 tackles with three sacks.