Dean having monster season

One of the nation's top offensive line recruits, Lancaster (Calif.) Paraclete's Jake Dean, is having a huge senior season. Dean has been a pancaking machine and had his best game of the year this past weekend.

Dean, 6-4, 265 pounds committed back in the summer to UCLA and is one of the top Ols in the West region in our eyes. He's a strong, physical player who can move and is very good getting down the field and making a secondary block on a linebacker or safety.

Dean also showed some toughness this past summer when he competed at the NorCal Nike camp just a week after breaking his nose at a camp the week before.

In seven games this season, Dean has already totaled 85 pancake blocks and seems to get better every game.

"The first game of the year, I only had four but I've improved every game," Dean said. "The next game I had six, then eight, 10, 14, 16 and this past week, I had 27. We started off passing the ball a lot earlier in the season but the last few weeks, we've really been running the ball a lot more so I've had a lot more chances to put guys on their back. I'm basically trying to manhandle my guy on every play."

Dean plays tackle at the high school level but was recruited by the Bruins to play center.

"I've been working on my snaps the past few weeks but mostly, I'm just focusing on tackle right now," Dean said. "I'll keep working on it though. When we do scout team work, I'll work out at center and will really focus on it once our season is over."

Despite his early commitment, Dean is still hearing from a few schools and may even take an official visit.

"Colorado, Arizona State and Cal are the schools still talking to me," Dean said. "Cal pretty much stopped calling after they lost to UCLA but I still hear from the others. I took a visit to ASU to watch a practice in the summer and I'm thinking of taking an official visit there but only if I get the OK from Coach Cable. He told me in the past that he didn't care if I took a visit just as long as I was open with him and told him what was going on. I haven't decided yet but I'm still 100% committed to UCLA and can't wait to get there next year."