Hooper will not rush decision

Austin Hooper plans to take all his official visits before making his decision and that will come in the fall but up first is a junior day trip to Washington that the Concord (Calif.) De La Salle defensive end is looking forward to.

The 6-foot-4, 233-pound prospect knows Washington assistant coach Tosh Lupoi pretty well and Hooper likes the entire coaching staff there so he's excited about his trip to check out what the program has to offer.

"I'm looking forward to it because I've met coach Lupoi," Hooper said.

"The first time I met him was in October. He's a De La Salle grad so he's always around the campus. He's a cool guy so I really enjoyed being around him. He's a cool dude and Washington probably has one of the top coaching staffs in America right now. I'm really looking forward to getting up there and seeing what Washington has to offer."

Hooper already has offers from Arizona State, Cal, Colorado, Houston, Northwestern, Oregon State, Washington, Washington State and Army and he recently attended Stanford's junior day.

The Cardinal did not offer but the coaching staff said if he continues to do well academically there's a good chance an offer will come.

Some more junior day visits could happen in the coming months but Hooper, who finished with 46 tackles and 10.5 sacks in his junior season, said he plans to wait things out to make his commitment.

"I might go to a couple more junior days just for the experience and to check out some of the other schools," Hooper said. "Other than that I'm really just trying to focus in on my senior season.

"I'm going to take all five of my official visits. If I go somewhere one time for three or four hours I don't know if I want to be there for four or five years. I'm going to have to check schools out multiple times to see where I want to be for a long time. I want to take my visits, talk it over with my family and see what's best for me."