Illinois QB draws early Big 12 offer

Deerfield (Ill.) junior quarterback prospect Alex Loukas (6-foot-4, 200 pounds) landed his first scholarship offer on Thursday from Iowa State U&niversity.

"I just wanted to let you know that I received my first scholarship offer on Thursday afternoon," Loukas said. "Iowa State has offered me a scholarship."

Loukas, who in 2004 passed for 1,518 yards and 16 touchdowns in just 9 games, talked about landing his first offer from the Cyclones.

"The coaches at Iowa State have been talking with my head coach (Steve Winiecki) and Iowa State requested my junior tape a few weeks ago. The coaches called my coach today and told him that they were impressed with my junior tape, and that Iowa State was ready to make me an early scholarship offer. My coach called me into the office and told me about the offer, then when I got home I called the coaches at Iowa State and they confirmed that they were offering me a scholarship."

"I had a nice talk with Coach Todd Fitch, who's the quarterbacks coach for Iowa State. He seems really excited about me and said that they were impressed with my junior tape. I told him that I was going to try and make an unofficial visit to Ames within the next few weeks, or possibly I'll try and make the Iowa State spring game."

Loukas admittedly was surprised to get the offer from the Cyclones, a program that he's going to check into and research very soon.

"It's exciting to get my first offer, and my family is also really excited about this as well. I had hoped to get some recruiting looks and hopefully and early offer, but you just never know when or if that could happen. I don't know a lot about Iowa State except that they play in the Big 12 conference and that they have been a pretty solid program. I'm definitely going to do some research on the school and the program shortly."