Four-star planning to narrow things down

Four-star linebacker prospect, Josh Shirley (6-2, 211, 4.53) from Fontana (Calif.) Kaiser has seen his star continually rise ever since he first introduced his skills to Rivals.com a summer ago at the Schuman's Ultimate 100 Camp. He now has 21 offers on the table and even though Shirley had nothing left to prove he continued to work on his skills at various camps.

Even though Shirley's list of offers come from schools, coast-to-coast, he still competed at the NIKE Camp, UCLA, USC's Rising Star's Camp, and most recently he attended once again, Schuman's Ultimate 100 camp where he took home the Camp's MVP Award.

"It felt pretty good," Shirley said about being named the Schuman's Ultimate 100 Camp's MVP award. "It's always good getting the opportunity to showcase my talents and they gave me the chance to that.

With his busy camp circuit winding down has Shirley's senior season is about to begin, has he begun to narrow colleges down or set any visits?

"I haven't set any visits yet," Shirley said. "I' still thinking about everybody. I'm trying to narrow my schools down to 10. That's the process I'm in right now.

One thing that had been constant since the spring with Shirley has been UCLA and Tennessee were among the teams that were mentioned as possible schools for official visits.

"It's a possibility," Shirley said about official visit to UCLA and Tennessee. "It's not set in stone."

Shirley did add that both UCLA and Tennessee are among his top schools.

USC recently offered Shirley's good friend and high school teammate, Anthony Brown, who quickly accepted the Trojan offer. Many have asked if Shirley would follow his teammate to USC.

"I like USC, I do," Shirley said. "I haven't made up my mind yet on any schools. It is a long thought out process and I'm just trying to make the right decision.

"It is good to know that a fellow teammate is going to USC," Shirley said. "That would be a plus, but it's not really in my decision factor."

Besides Tennessee, UCLA, and USC, who are the other schools that Shirley has interest in?

"Arizona, Washington, Notre Dame, Miami, and Utah" Shirley said. "There's a lot of schools that I'm still interested in."

Shirley plans on narrowing his list schools that he will visit a couple of weeks before his senior season starts and hopes to take a couple of his visits during the season because he would like to go see a couple of games.

Shirley plays defensive end on the collegiate level, but most schools are recruiting him as an outside linebacker. Does Shirley have preference on position he will play on the next level?

"No, but I feel like the way my body is built, I'm better suited to play linebacker," Shirley said. "If I was 6-5, 250 then it would be a different story."

As a junior, Shirley earned League defensive MVP, first-team all-county, first-team all-area, first-team all-CIF and first-team all-state underclass after racking up 123 tackles, 17 sacks, 12 knockdown passes and three forced fumbles.

In the wright room, his current bench is 355, squats 495, power cleans 285, dead lifts 605 and has recorded a 35.5 vertical jump.

Shirley earned a spot on the Rivals.com Rivals250 for the class of 2010. He is also ranked by Rivals.com as the nation's No. 9 outside linebacker prospect.