Sedrick Johnson said he was going to Texas A&M. On Wednesday, the highly touted wide receiver signed a letter of intent to play football for Iowa State.

“It went right down to the wire with him for sure,” said offensive coordinator Robert McFarland. “He was a young man that we’ve been recruiting for about a year now and just kind of kept steady with it, kept telling him about our program and showing it to him.”

Now, it will be Johnson’s turn to show what he can do. The 6-foot-4-inch, 180-pound high school senior from Troup, Texas joined 24 other high school players in signing letters of intent with the Cyclones on Wednesday, the first day high school football players could make their decisions official.

For Johnson, that decision came after verbally committing to play for former Aggies coach Dennis Franchione in July. Franchione, who resigned in November, was replaced by Mike Sherman, a major reason why the Rivals.com four-star recruit switched to Iowa State.

“I know that he agonized over it most of the morning,” said Paul Clark, publisher of Cyclonereport.com.

The decision, which was made shortly before noon, came down to Johnson going to the Aggies or the Cyclones. Clark said Johnson had letters of intent for both schools with him.

“I think that they [Iowa State’s assistant coaches] convinced him that this ship is sailing in the right direction and, if he comes here he can be a great part of changing this thing around, and I think he wanted to do that,” said head coach Gene Chizik.

McFarland hopes he can do some of the things he did in high school as a Cyclone. The first-team all-district football player hauled in 41 receptions for 633 yards and 12 touchdowns as a senior.

“He brings a lot of athleticism,” McFarland said. “[He’s a] very competitive kid that’s competed at a high level, and we’re hoping that he can transition that to this level.”

Chizik hopes the rest of his signing class will do that, as well. The 2008 class includes one quarterback, two running backs, four wide receivers, two tight ends and a pair of offensive linemen. Defensively, he added four defensive linemen, two linebackers and three defensive backs. Chizik said there wasn’t one specific area he was looking to improve on.

“I think that we felt like a whole, if you look at our football team on both sides of the football, you can go to any position and, in our opinion, we felt like we needed an upgrade,” Chizik said.

That includes an upgrade to the kicking position, where the Cyclones lost place kickers Bret Culbertson and Josh Griebahn to graduation. During the season, the position was an area of concern for Chizik, who added a pair of in-state kickers, Johnston’s Zach Guyer and Linn-Marr’s Grant Mahoney on Wednesday. In his final year, Guyer connected on 11 of 14 field goal attempts, including a career-long 49-yarder. As a senior, Mahoney kicked 14 of 22 kickoffs for touchbacks.

“We had to address somebody that could get the ball into the end zone or out of the end zone,” Chizik said. “We felt like Zach Guyer was a guy that could really give us that opportunity.”

He also said he ignored many of the recruiting rankings when looking for players.

“We don’t worry about who’s recruiting them, we don’t worry about how many stars they have by their name,” Chizik said. “If we think this young man is a good fit for our program, we try to recruit them.”

Chizik said he also tried to steer away from the junior college level as well. After filling his 2007 signing class with 11 junior college transfers, the Cyclones’ second-year coach added only one this year – sophomore wide receiver Jason Carlson from North Dakota State College of Science.

“Our plan and our journey here is a long-term plan,” he said. “It’s a long-term journey to build this thing right from the ground floor up, and we think the bottom of the pyramid has been started.”

Clark thinks the team looks pretty good, too.

“The real recruiting ratings come out three or four years from now,” Clark said. “The Big 12 standings, that’s when we’ll really know how good this class is. I don’t think there’s any question that they got the class of guys they needed.”