El Paso TE staying home

El Paso (Texas) Del Valle tight end Max Savedra won't venture too far from home to play his college football. The 6-foot-5, 238-pounder made a commitment earlier this week to play football for his home-town team.

"I made a verbal commitment to UTEP," Savedra, a two-star prospect, said.

"During one of our practices Mike Price came down and told my coach he was going to offer me a scholarship. And then after that there was a camp for all the top players in El Paso at UTEP. The coaches were asking me if I was interested. I told him that it was a good offer, and that I was ready to verbally commit."

Savedra said the decision to stay home was a little tougher than he thought at first.

"I honestly wanted to go to a school out of town," he said.

"But a lot of people wanted to covert me to an offensive tackle. I'm not the fastest guy out there, but I can get it done at tight end. They're the team that believed in me enough and had the faith in me to keep me at tight end. I said 'since you have faith in me, I want to go with you guys.' Texas Tech wanted me to come to their camp, and the coach said if I did well then I would have gotten an offer, but nobody was as up front with me as UTEP was."

Savedra said he was recruited by UTEP assistant Jeff Banks.

"Coach Banks is a real cool guy," Savedra said. "But honestly all the coaches are great. Coach Banks has been talking to me for a while, and I built a good bond with him."