Houston kicker getting late looks

With camps and trainers being a year round business for kickers these days, it is easy for a top prospect to seemingly fall through the cracks if they do not participate in the big-name events. That is exactly the case for a Houston-area prospect.

Spring (Texas) Klein Oak kicker Michael Shroble was arguably the top player at his position in the Lone Star State this year. However, he has never put too much emphasis on the offseason camps, preferring to let his play on the field do the talking. It did just that this season and he connected on five of six field goal attempts from 50+ yards. A couple Big 12 programs have taken notice but no offers have come his way just yet.

"Oklahoma has come in and they want me to walk on," the 6-foot-1, 215-pound Shroble said. "Texas Tech does too. Other than that, I haven't heard too much just yet. I've talked to coach (Tommy) Mainord from Texas Tech and two coaches from OU.

"I've gotten letters from Iowa State and Missouri. I was getting them from Utah, Boise, and some others. I was getting some stuff there for a while but then they mostly stopped for some reason."

Shroble hopes to set up official visits to two schools in the near future.

"I want to take ones to Texas Tech and Oklahoma," he said. "It's a dead period right now but I'm planning to set them up in January. I'm just waiting until then."

Shroble has two teammates committed to the Sooners in Nathan Hughes and Max Stevenson and he wouldn't mind making it a trio. He has some other schools in mind as well, though.

"I hope Oklahoma will offer," he said. "If not, I heard Georgia was looking at me. I'd love to go to an SEC school to kick because I think the SEC is the best of the best sometimes. I wouldn't mind somewhere on the West coast like UCLA because they always have really good kickers."

Shroble hopes to gain some scholarship offers but he has not ruled out the idea of walking on at a program.

"My parents said that if I need to walk on somewhere, they'll pay it," he said. "If I had a chance to earn a scholarship, then it's even better. I'm looking for a school that will offer a scholarship now but I'm not going to rule those out that don't.

"If I beat everybody out, I figure I'll be on scholarship. That's going to be the case with any school, I'm pretty sure."

For now, he is hoping a big honor he recently received will resonate with college recruiters.

"I just got named All-Greater Houston by the Houston Chronicle," Shroble said. "I was excited by that and that might bring in some more schools."