Decisions coming for Sims

If Monroe (La.) Ouachita Parish four-star wide receiver Cameron Sims was not racking up the travel points before this summer, he certainly has plenty now.

Over the summer months, the 6-foot-4, 190-pound wideout made his way around the nation. There were stops at Mississippi State, Ole Miss, Auburn, Georgia, Georgia Tech, Notre Dame, Washington, and USC just to name a few. That is some serious mileage on the tires.

Now he is back home in Monroe, and preparing for his senior season, but recruiting is not far from his mind.

"We have fall camp starting so I think starting Monday we'll try to setup some official visits and setting them in stone," Ouachita Parish linebackers coach Dean Smith said. "We kind of got back to our football season after a long summer of traveling. He has to get back with the team and get back level headed again. He really hasn't been talking to coaches on the phone but he's been getting an idea of where he wants to go on officials and things of that nature. So that's kind of the next phase of where he's headed. I know he'll make his official announcement of where he's headed at the Under Armour game in Orlando, Fla."

Sims has kept an open mind throughout the recruiting process, and while Smith did not know if Sims has trimmed his list, the cuts are coming.

"I know he likes the SEC, a couple of schools in the Big 12 and the Pac-12 caused interest because of what they do," Coach Smith said. "I don't know exactly the list he has it narrowed down to but we'll know in a week or two. He'll have to get it going because a couple of games and football coming back up and you have to make your official visits. He's going to be an early enrollee in January so he's going to take his official visits during the season so he won't have to prolong that deal."

Concrete plans have not been made on the travel schedule, but there are a few unofficial visits in the works for Sims.

"We're going to go Cowboys Stadium (for Notre Dame-Arizona State)," Coach Smith said. "It's a must you go to the Alabama-LSU game. We've been going to that game the last couple of years. There will be a couple of SEC games out there at Ole Miss and Mississippi State because they're not that far from the house. We'll go to some games at Southern in Baton Rouge. He likes them a lot. His grandmother had eight kids and all eight kids went to the university. So he'll go Southern University and show them love because that's a school he's been going to his whole life for football games."

As decisions are being made, several factors will be taken into account. Offenses, coaching staffs, program stability are all part of the formula.

To this point in the process, not much has been decided, but it certainly looks like the action will pick up over the next few weeks.

"We'll start catching some games," Coach Smith said. "We'll start going here and going there. It'll start to pick up. This was our first week of football practice. We've been here all day and all night. He's too tired to get on the phone with college coaches and the coaches are too tired to call you right now. Once everybody gets acclimated to practicing again and finds their time for recruiting then you start back up. We're looking at all these schedules right now and figuring out which games. It's about to get going. It's about to get exciting."