New England war for Lankford

McKeesport (Pa.) McKeesport Area safety Ray Lankford is ready to make his decision. One of two teams could be getting an early Christmas present.

"I'll probably decide this week," said the 6-foot-2, 205-pounder. "It's between Boston College and UConn. Those are my final two. Iowa was in there, but they stopped calling me for a little bit and then started again. I can't tell where I stand with them and they're pretty far away so I sort of dropped them out."

Lankford, who could easily grow into a linebacker, likes different things about each of his favorites.

"BC is a great place and I feel comfortable overall there," he said. "I also like my recruiting coach, Bob Shoop, and he'd be my position coach. UConn is an up-and-coming program and they have a few McKeesport kids on their team so that makes it feel like home. I could be part of building something there as well."

Lankford wants to major in communications with a secondary major in German. He almost chose the Huskies last week until he found out that BC offers German as well.

"It's important to me, so I'm glad BC offers it as well," he said. "My mom travels a lot and she picked up a lot of German when she was there. I've been taking it for three years now and I want to continue it. Now that both schools have my majors, it's just time to make a decision."

Lankford wouldn't name a leader between the two schools.