Nevada pair looking coast to coast

Twin brothers Jeff Cavender and Pete Cavender from Elko, Nevada are taking a meticulous and thorough approach to recruiting. Jeff is a 6-foot-2, 255 pound offensive guard and inside linebacker and Pete is 6-foot-2, 260 pound offensive guard and defensive tackle.

They have been hearing from schools across the entire country. "Me and Pete have been getting a of lot letters from a lot of schools. We're mainly looking at the Big Ten, SEC, WAC and PAC 10 conferences, but we're also looking at schools from other conferences too," Jeff Cavender said.

The Cavender twins have already unofficially visited most of the Big Ten-area schools. "We went to the Nike training combo camp in Lansing, Michigan. After the camp, we traveled to and visited the campuses of Michigan State, Michigan, Ohio State, Purdue and Notre Dame. We were going to go to Penn State and Northwestern too, but we ran out of time. Our mom went to Purdue, so she went with us." Jeff said.

"This summer and next winter we're going on more trips to more schools," said Pete Cavender. "What we've seen we like a lot, but we need to see more to be sure of our choices. Right now we're planning to wait until the signing date to commit, so we should have plenty of time to check things out thoroughly."

The Cavenders recently received their first scholarship offers. "Nevada-Reno phoned the other day and offered us," Jeff said. "We also got phone calls from Fresno State and Notre Dame. Our coach told us that Oregon State is going to be calling us and visiting soon too."

Jeff said it was too early to give a list of leaders or to narrow things down any, but he did give comments about some of the major schools who have contacted them. In no particular order they were:

Notre Dame - "We're both real interested in Notre Dame. They've sent us emails and handwritten letters. We saw them on our Midwestern swing and they showed us good hospitality. They weren't expecting us because we didn't call ahead, but we saw a guy walking around and we asked him if we could see the stadium. He knew who we were. He said, 'Are you those twins from Nevada?' We talked to Coach Willingham and he gave us a tour of the facilities. He said that their facilities would be getting better soon. We were impressed with the educational opportunities there. We were in awe of everything. They said that they're going to come to Elko and talk to us some more."

Michigan - "We're both really interested in Michigan too. They've always been a favorite of mine since I was a kid. On our trip, we checked out their stadium and it was unreal. I can't even imagine what it would feel like to play in it."

Ohio State - "We liked our visit there too. We get about one letter per week from them, but they haven't called yet."

Oregon - "We went to the Nike training camp in Oregon last spring. Their facilities are awesome! We liked it a lot. They were real friendly. We met most of the coaches and talked to Coach Belotti. They send us letters all the time."

Stanford - "Our sister thought about going to school there so we went with her to check it out. The whole atmosphere was pretty neat. We would probably get most out of our education there."

Nebraska - "We've received some letters from them. We've never visited, but we'd be interested in going if we could work it out. They're an awesome program."

Colorado - "Our dad went to Colorado. They've sent us a questionnaire and a couple of letters."

Said Pete: "We like the same schools pretty much, but we don't have a particular order yet. Our lists will probably change the more places we see. We want to play together, but if we went to separate schools it would not be too much of a big deal. We both want to go where there will be big competition and where the team will be successful. We want to win."

Asked what their parents thoughts on their recruiting is Pete said, "They'd like to see us play together. They want to be able to come see our games. They just want the best experience for us and for us to have fun. They want us to get a good education."

The Cavender twins plan to attend summer camps at "Washington, UCLA, Oregon, some other west coast schools and maybe Notre Dame," said Jeff.