Top 3 of Nebraska, Washington, Cal
On May 28th his top 4 were: Washington, Nebraska, San Diego St, and UCLA. Why?
Washington - good relationship with coaches.
Nebraska - good relationship with coaches, Big 10 football = best offensive linemen.
San Diego St - hometown team, loves San Diego, good relationship with coaches.
UCLA - good relationship with coaches, incredible facilities.
On July 6th his top 3 are: Washington, Nebraska, Cal... with Arkansas, SMU, San Diego St, and UCLA not far behind.
Cal - loves facilities (particularly stadium and weight room), loves the Bay Area, close to home.
My take? I see a re-occuring theme of "close to home"... Cal, San Diego State, UCLA... all close to home and one of the reasons he likes them is because they are close to home. Washington is familiarity for him (Pac12) and is still relatively close to home. Arkansas is only in his list because he wants to see an SEC gameday environment with one of his officials... they aren't real contenders to land him, SMU will fall off shortly for a number of reasons. Nebraska has a shot at this kid but the fact that he keeps talking about close to home makes me wonder if he won't be one of the 90%+ of recruits that stay within 6hrs of home for school.
One thing that did interest me though is this... everything he has really liked about some of the big schools close to home do not even begin to compare with what Nebraska has.
Weight Room - Cal's new Athlete High Performance Center is impressive... Cal now has a players lounge, new locker room, very large weight room, training table, refueling station, etc. just like Nebraska does... but Cal doesn't have 5 National Championship trophies, dozens and dozens of BCS orange bowl, fiesta bowl, sugar bowl, trophies. Cal doesn't have an academic learning center/ life skills center that compares with ours nor do they have a performance lab that tests the brain and equips players to learn as fast as they can based on how their individual brain works. Cal doesn't have an indoor practice facility that stacks up to ours, and they don't have eliteFORM like Nebraska does.
We can blow Cal away on several several levels.
Stadium - Cal's seats about 75,000 people... yes it's being rennovated, but once done still won't be the size or glitz that NU's is. NU's will seat 93,000 people and will have 5 HD screens and 3 60-yd ribbon boards.