National Signing Day: Vintage’s Canepa, Davis, and Gullum sign letters of intent of play football at next level
By Kyle Foster
Twitter @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews
National Signing Day is a big day for players, coaches, and parents alike. It also represents the quality of a program when multiple players are signing on the same day.
For the Vintage football program, Wednesday was a big day as Louie Canepa, Diego Davis, and Preston Gullum will all be playing at the next level come the fall.
“I mean, it’s always good exposure. But I think this is more about them, as far as their success and the things they’ve done to get to the spot, and then their future, obviously, so great for the program,” Vintage head coach Dylan Leach said. “But also just amazing for these three individuals.”
Louie Canepa
Canepa is headed to New Mexico State University In Las Cruces, New Mexico. He is currently an undeclared major but wants to get involved with real estate.
A major reason for wanting to get into real estate was because of Leach.
“Honestly, Dylan Leach. We went up to a couple of camps in Los Angeles and when we were driving around up there, we finished a camp, and then he was just like ‘let’s go check out some houses and I was like, why not,’” Canepa explained. “ o we went up to all the million-dollar houses we went to the $30 million big houses and after that trip, I just fell in love with like big houses and real estate.”
Canepa will also be leaving in five weeks to participate in spring activities.
He was also able to be seen by coaches thanks to going to a plethora of camps that assistant coach Dennis Raines help him get entered into.
“Raines mainly put me through camps that started that process,” Canepa said. “After that, it kind of took off. It went to they would just talk to me individually. But Raines was definitely a huge part in the process of my recruiting.”
Everything moved very quickly in the recruiting process with New Mexico State. After all, they offered him on January 24th. That’s just in time to sign the National Letter of Intent.
The Aggies are one of the few Football Bowl Subdivision schools that is independent. This means they aren’t a member of a conference and play a schedule with a variety of different teams throughout the season. They went independent in 2018. However, come the fall of 2023, New Mexico State will join Conference USA.
From Cali to Cruces – our OL just got better!
Welcome to the Aggie family, @Louiecanepa15 ✍️#AggieUp | 🏈 pic.twitter.com/5n24wdNdkt
— New Mexico State Football (@NMStateFootball) February 2, 2022
The Aggies are led by head coach Jerry Kill who will enter his second season at the helm next season.
Last season was a rough one for the Aggies, as they went 2-10 overall. In 2017, New Mexico State made the Arizona Bowl, which was their fourth bowl appearance since 1960.
At Vintage, Canepa has been a three-year varsity starter. He’s won plenty of awards in his time as a Crusher as well. He was a two-time first-team All-VVAL member having received the honor in 2019 and in 2021. He was also voted as the lineman of the year this past season. Canepa also played baseball for two years at Vintage.
Canepa also earned All-Metro this last season from the San Francisco Chronicle and was also named to the SBLive All-North Coast Section team last season. He’s also a three-star recruit per 247Sports.
Besides New Mexico State, he received offers from Air Force, Army, Colorado State, and Fordham.
It was also cool for him to do this alongside Davis and Gullum.
“It means a lot for me just because they went to Vintage,” he explained. “Obviously having Deigo go D1 and Preston D3, it just means a lot for having a community of football players that are going to the next level.”
Diego Davis
Davis is headed to Stetson University, which is located in DeLand, Florida. It’s located in between Orlando and Daytona Beach.
When Davis gets to Stetson, he plans to double major in sports medicine and business administration.
“I want to be able to open up my own business and like be a physical therapy kind of like place,” Davis explained. “Whenever athletes like get hurt and stuff, they can come there and like be able to get like rehab and get stronger and injury prevention and stuff like that.”
Stetson is a Football Championship Subdivision school in NCAA division one.
Last season the Hatters went 4-7 and went 2-6 in the Pioneer Football League. The league spans from Florida all the way to California.
Davis is coming off a great senior season. He rushed for 581 yards on just 47 carries last season, and also scored 10 touchdowns. He also had 9 receptions for 118 yards, and 3 trips to the end zone in that time as well. As a junior, he had 3 rushes for 8 yards and a touchdown to go with 4 receptions for 73 yards and an end-zone trip in the COVID shortened spring season.
During this last season, Davis was also voted to the first team All-VVAL. He was also voted as the defensive player of the year.
Throughout the 2021 season, Leach said Davis wasn’t getting the credit he deserved. So for him to play at the next level is great.
“That’s great for him,” Leach added. “It’s an awesome school, that is a very expensive school, that’s he’s getting paid for. We can’t be any more excited for him. I can’t think of many other players that I’ve coached better than him, and I feel like he’s going to be absolutely dominant there.”
For Davis, it was also pretty cool to sign alongside Canepa and Gullum.
“It’s a great feeling,” Davis said. “You know, we’ve been teammates for so long and we’ve been able to achieve our goals right now.”
Preston Gullum
Gullum is headed to George Fox University in Newburg, Oregon. It’s a short jaunt away from Portland.
While there, he plans to major in business. A major reason for him wanting to get into business was the fact that he started a business during the pandemic.
“My dad was always involved in business, and I kind of fell in love with that thanks to him,” Gullum said. “I started a business during COVID, selling eBay parts and from cars and stuff. It’s been fun. So I’ve enjoyed that, and I want to keep going into that.”
Like Canepa, Gullum was able to be seen after going to camps. He got help getting into these camps from Raines as well.
George Fox University is an NCAA division three school that competes in the Northwest Conference.
Last season, the Bruins went 6-3 overall 6-1 in NWC play. That was a second-place finish in the conference.
Gullum was also a three-year starter at the varsity level. He was also voted to second-team All-VVAL this past season. Gullum has also played baseball at Vintage as well.
It’s also pretty cool for Gullum to sign with Canepa and Davis.
“Well, those guys are studs, and I’ve enjoyed playing with them all these high school years,” Gullum said of signing with his teammates.
