Martin checks out L.A. schools

Oakland (Calif.) Bishop O'Dowd athlete Chris Martin is easily among the top juniors in the country. Offers continue to pour in for Martin and he spent this past week in SoCal checking out both UCLA and USC.

Martin, 6-4, 225 pounds earned all-state underclass honors as a sophomore last year and has been a man among boys at every camp he has been to this year including the NIKE Camp at Stanford and most recently, the Rising Stars Camp at USC.

The athlete picked up early offers from Colorado, Cal, Oregon and Stanford and landed two more in the last few weeks from the Bruins and Trojans.

"It was a fun week for me checking out the schools," Martin said. "I got in to L.A on Tuesday and then headed over to UCLA on Wednesday. Coach Moses met up with me at around 10:00 and I was there until 2:00 or so.

"I had a great time meeting all the coaches and seeing the entire campus. I met Coach Neuheisal, Walker and McClure and Coach McClure is the one who showed me around the campus. It was incredible, I got to see everything, not just football related but the dorms, the cafeteria, the mini mall on campus and all the academics buildings as well.

"It's a really beautiful campus and the hospitality the coaches showed me was incredible. I had already talked with Coach Moses on the phone and he told me I had offer and the visit kind of solidified that for me.

"After UCLA, I headed over to USC and got there right when they were starting up one on ones. I was just planning to visit the school but Coach Carroll grabbed and threw me in with the linebackers and told me to make a play. I caused a fumble in the 7 on 7 and then he said he had seen enough of me there and wanted to work me out at defensive end.

"I haven't played defensive end since I was 10 years old and had no clue what I was doing. I didn't really have much technique and my first rep was against Xavier Su'a-Filo, who's a friend of mine that I had met at Stanford's Junior Day.

"I basically steamrolled right over him because I didn't know we couldn't bull rush. It was kind of funny but I learned a lot from the coaches and they were great with me. I also talked a lot with Devon Kennard and he showed me some things that I could do as a pass rusher so that was cool.

"Overall, I had a great time at both places. At UCLA, I got more of the full campus experience with the tour and all and at USC, it was mostly football and the competition on the field was great.

"At USC, I like the coaches a lot and the team is always good. Coach Carroll was telling me how they haven't lost in November in a long time and that's big because that's when it's crunch time. UCLA is on the rise and you can tell from talking to the coaches there that they really believe in the program and I see them winning very soon.

"Right now, my top schools would be Stanford, UCLA, USC, and Colorado. Stanford has great academics, the two L.A schools have a nice combination of academics and football and Colorado was the first to offer me and I had a great visit out there as well.

"I still want to check out Oregon too and Cal is the local school and they'll always be up there but I'm not hearing as much from them as the other schools. As for when I'll commit, I'm talking with my dad about that and he thinks I should do it next summer before my senior year.

"I'm just going to let things plays out and see what happens. I may take one or two official visits or if I do commit next summer, I'll just take one trip to the school that I committed to."