Foster excited about UCLA offer

D.J. Foster had not been talking to UCLA much but Scottsdale (Ariz.) Saguaro teammates Cyrus Hobbi and Brock Haman have and that relationship might have paid off for Foster, a 2012 athlete, who picked up a verbal offer from the Bruins in recent days.

Arizona State and Oregon State have also offered and UCLA is another big one especially since Foster is originally from San Jose, would like to return to California and said he's always liked the UCLA football program.

"It was kind of surprising," Foster said. "They had been talking to a lot of our players, Brock and Cyrus, but I never really talked to them much. I knew they were looking at me but I was really surprised they offered. That's a big offer because that's always been a school I wanted to go to so I was pretty happy about it.

"I'm a Cali boy, a lot of my family is from there and I actually want to go back. I heard it's a beautiful campus but I haven't seen it yet though."

Arizona State was the first program to offer Foster, a 5-foot-10, 180-pound prospect who rushed for 545 yards and 10 touchdowns on 59 carries in his sophomore season.

He said the Sun Devils like him as an athlete and that Oregon State is looking at him to play defensive back.

"ASU was the first one so I've been talking to them for a while now and then Oregon State came to our last game and I got to see their coach so that was pretty good," Foster said.

Things could be picking up even more for Foster soon since he said Oregon has increased its interest recently. He's not sure if the Ducks will offer but that would be another big Pac-10 offer to seriously consider.

USC, Washington, Cal, Stanford, Arizona, BYU, Michigan, Nebraska and Oklahoma are some other programs listed on Foster's Rivals.com database page.

"Oregon is showing the most interest," Foster said. "That would be a good offer, too. That would be great."