Green takes surprise visit

We talked to Sherman Oaks (Calif.) Notre Dame Garrett Green last week shortly after the quarterback received a scholarship offer from UCLA. Green was set to visit Texas A&M this past weekend but a phone call Thursday night with an ensuing scholarship offer put that trip on hold for the weekend.

"Yeah, I got a call last Thursday from USC and they offered me a scholarship," Green said. "It was pretty exciting as you can imagine and I decided to take an official visit there this weekend instead of A&M. I'm still interested in A&M but it just worked out better for me to take the visit to SC this weekend.

"I had a great time but I did not commit. I'll tell you though, it was very tough not to commit to them, those coaches are very good recruiters and can be pretty persuasive. Cary Harris, who played here at Notre Dame, was my host and like I said, I had a real good time. He showed me all around the campus and I met with a lot of different people there.

"I had some good talks with the coaches there and they went over their depth charts and opportunity for playing time. It's really an interesting sell because on one hand, everyone knows how loaded USC is at every position and everyone knows how good Mark Sanchez is. At the same time, including Mark, the only other quarterback they have is John David Booty so even though both guys are pretty young, the opportunity to play there isn't so far fetched.

"The coaches really stressed to me how there is going to be competition wherever I go and I shouldn't make that a big reason for my decision. I agree with that and that's why I like USC so much right now. They have a great staff of coaches, they're winning right now and the fact that the school is close to home, that's a big plus too.

"They talked to me a lot about making a commitment but I'm just not ready to do that yet. My plan all along was to take a couple of trips first, then kind of take a step back from everything and analyze where the best situation for me is. Along with USC, I'm still looking at A&M, UCLA and Nebraska. I'm going to visit one of the three next week but I'm not sure which one yet. I'm hoping to take two more visits since there are two more weekends before Signing Day and then I'll make my decision by the end of the month."