Peters talks about trip to ACC schools

When Bryan Peters turned his cell phone on after a flight to the East Coast to check out North Carolina, NC State and Duke last week, he had a message from his coach that another offer had come in.

So Peters called and was told that Florida State offered him, something that was totally unexpected but the La Mirada, Calif., offensive lineman is more than willing to listen to the Seminoles.

"It came out of nowhere," Peters said. "We were getting off our flight in North Carolina on Thursday and I saw a missed call from my coach. I called him back and he said he just talked to coach (Rick) Trickett and I have an offer. That was big.

"Just the tradition, they're a national powerhouse for as long as I can remember. Really it's just the tradition, a big-time conference. Location isn't really a factor for me so I'll go out there. I like coach Trickett. I like his coaching style. He's hard-nosed. That's how I'm coached now."

Peters, a 6-foot-5, 305-pound offensive tackle, already had offers from Colorado State, Hawaii, Nevada, New Mexico and Wyoming but Florida State clearly stands out. That was a good start for what was an informative and valuable trip to see three other ACC programs.

Peters and La Mirada teammate Isaac Luatua, who recently picked up an offer from Tennessee, visited North Carolina for its junior day and spring game. It was definitely a trip worth taking.

"That was cool," Peters said. "It looked like we were the only California kids out there. All the rest were from North Carolina and I saw one kid from Alabama. They took us in, we ate a meal first and then heard coach (Butch) Davis talk.

"They took us out on the field for warm-ups. That was awesome seeing those guys, it's a spring game and those guys are still fired up. I liked that. The area and all the students, even the non-football players, they live football."

NC State and Duke were also good stops. Peters got to sit down and talk with the coaching staffs to better familiarize himself with the situation at each program. That was one of the highlights of those trips.

"NC State was the one where we sat down with coach (Tom) O'Brien and the offensive line coach and also at North Carolina, we sat down with coach (Sam) Pittman and talked to him about what kind of coach he is, what kind of players we are and how we're going to deal with the whole recruiting process," Peters said.

"The thing I liked a lot about Duke was it's a small school, a beautiful campus and it's a top 10 education in the country with a really good football program."

Georgia Tech, Maryland and Boston College have recently emerged in the recruitment of Peters, who said he still plans to attend UCLA's summer camp in mid-June in hopes of picking up another offer. Things are moving fast for Peters, who is picking up lots of offers but still hasn't cracked the Pac-10 schools yet.

"Every camp I go to I'm going to work my butt off and try to get an offer everywhere," Peters said.