Missouri OL has local, national offers

Junior to Watch: Brett Gallimore

School: Riverside (Mo.) Park Hill South

Position: Offensive tackle

Size and speed: Gallimore is 6-foot-5, 290 pounds and has been timed by his coach at 5.1 seconds in the 40-yard dash. He also has 300-pound bench-press and a squat max of 450 pounds.

Honors: Gallimore was an honorable all-metro pick as a junior.

Statistics: Gallmore as an offensive lineman didn’t have any notable statistics.

Favorite Schools: Gallimore has received offers from Florida State, Minnesota, Kansas, Kansas State, Missouri and Iowa. He said he’s going to take an unofficial visit to Oklahoma and Michigan during his spring break and was told by both schools that he’d earn an offer after visiting with them.

Skinny: The buzz with college coaches that recruit the Midlands is that the state of Missouri is loaded with at least 10 four-star players for the Class of 2004 and the number might be as high as 15 by the time the smoke clears. One name that hasn’t been talked a lot about is Riverside (Mo.) Park Hill South offensive tackle Brett Gallimore.

The 6-foot-5, 290-pound Gallimore has the size that college coaches crave, has great drive blocking skills – plus he also has a load of impressive scholarship offers.

“I never thought it would be like this,” Gallimore said. “After my sophomore year, I was really skinny, so I focused on just adding a lot of weight. I almost ended up being too fat. I had to lose the weight. I replaced it all with muscle. I like where I’m at now. The college coaches all say that I’m the right size and that I’m a very good drive blocker.”

Asked what he does best, Gallimore said that his run blocking is what he prides himself on.

“We don’t pass too much around here,” Gallimore said. “But if you watch my highlight tape, you’ll see that it’s basically 15 minutes of me pancaking people. That’s one of the neatest experiences that you can get in football. I love smashing the guy into the ground.”

But he said he isn’t satisfied with where he’s at now. He hopes to dedicate himself even harder this spring and summer to the weight room and improve his upper-body strength and other areas of his game.

“I want to improve on everything,” he said. “I’m also going to work hard on my speed and footwork.”

Gallimore said he’s not in a rush to make any kind of college decision. At this point, he said he’s keeping his options wide open.

“Michigan and Oklahoma want me to come to their place for a spring practice,” he said. “They told me that I’d get an offer from them if I went down there. I never in the world thought that I would get an offer from a team like Florida State, but I got the package and letter from Bobby Bowden right here.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do at this point. I really used to like Nebraska when I was a little kid.

"But I’m going to keep all of my options open at this point and see what happens. I don’t plan on making a decision any time soon.”