Florida DB still has top two

Titusville (Fla.) safety Renford Parkes still has his two visits lined up to his favorites but he's waiting on scheduling any other trips.

"I'm still hearing from a lot of schools but I haven't set up any more visits yet," Parkes said. "I'm actually waiting to see if anything else happens and if I get any more offers. I've only got a few more visits I can set up so I've got to choose those wisely. I'm trying to see if any other schools are going to offer and then I'll take it from there."

Renford previously scheduled visits to his top two schools-- Stanford (Dec. 6) and UCF (Jan. 3). He has offers from both schools and also from South Florida, Duke, UConn, Rutgers, and Bethune-Cookman. Parkes also is regularly hearing from coaches at Auburn, NC State, and Florida State and is waiting to see if those schools will extend offers.

Parkes attended UCF's home game on September 28th and was in Gainesville earlier in the month for the Florida-Miami game.

"I was scheduled to go to the Florida State-Miami game this week but I've got SATs so I won't be able to make that game," he said. "I might go down to South Florida that night next Saturday. They play Southern Mississippi. I might go to that and then after that I'll probably be at UCF's next home game."

Last week Titusville played their crosstown rival Astronaut High School.

"It came down to the wire," Renford said. "We were losing 14 -10 with about a minute left in the game and we were on the 10 yard line but we threw an interception and they returned it for a touchdown. The final score was 20-10. It was a hard game and it was very emotional too because I was a senior and I wanted to beat them in my last time playing them. It was a total team effort though and we just came up a little short.

"We had a lot of UCF players at the game also. Most of them came from Astronaut and they brought their friends and Ronnell Sandy our linebacker that signed with them brought a lot of his friends."

Titusville is 2-3 on the season and is gearing up for a match with Daytona Beach-Mainland this week. Going into the Astronaut game Parkes was leading the Central Florida area in tackles.

"I had 70 and that was before the last game," Parkes said. "I'm in the 80s now and I know I had over 10 tackles last Friday so I think now I'm in the 80s and No. 1 in Central Florida in tackles. That's pretty cool."

Renford's primary position is strong safety but he's been playing a bit of offense for Titusville this season as well.

"I'm also a wide receiver. Actually I scored four touchdowns so far this season at wide receiver. I'm doing pretty good. I've got close to 300 yards receiving and four touchdowns so far. I'm doing both ways to try and help out my team. Strong safety is my main position. I play wide receiver to try to help out my team and do whatever I can to help us get some wins."

Parkes did catch some of Stanford's game with Notre Dame over the weekend. In fact one of their coaches gave him a call as the team was leaving South Bend to go back to Palo Alto. He also talked recently with UCF's coach.

"Actually the coach from Stanford, their defensive backs coach, called me from the airplane when they were coming back home right before they were about to take off," Parkes said. "He gave me a call from the airplane and talked with me a little bit after the game. That was pretty cool. We talked a little bit about the game. After I played last Friday night against Astronaut I talked to Coach Fountain from UCF at about 12 at night. He wanted me to give him a call to see how everything went so I gave him a call and talked to him a little bit."