San Diego LB close on offers

It looks like it will be a strong year for talent in the San Diego area next year and one player on the verge of landing several early scholarship offers is Vista (Calif.) linebacker Travis Goethel.

Goethel, 6-3, 210 pounds is a classic inside linebacker who will likely be a national recruit before the spring evaluation period is over. He earned 1st team all-league, 1st team all-county and 1st team all-CIF honors a year ago after totaling 80 tackles, six quarterback sacks and two interceptions including one he returned for a touchdown.

Panther head coach Dan Williams has coached at both Vista and Carlsbad the past decade and worked with some great linebackers including two currently in the NFL. In his eyes, Goethel is every bit as good as any of them.

"I coached Brandon Chillar (UCLA, St. Louis Rams) at Carlsbad for a year and had Pisa Tinoisamoa (Hawaii, St. Louis Rams) and Tim Warfield (UCLA) at Vista along with a few others who went Div I," Williams said. "Travis is as good as any of them. He may not run as well as Pisa could but he's just as good a linebacker and makes a ton of plays for us.

"I've gotten calls from coaches at UCLA, Arizona State, San Diego State and Boise State who all said they will be offering him early. Brian Schneider at UCLA just called me and said they're close to offering and SDSU has something going on March 12 and said they want to offer him at that time. USC has also called to talk about him although they didn't mention anything about an offer.

"Right now, I think Travis is a little overwhelmed with everything as I'm not sure he expected to get this much attention. I think he wants to go through the recruiting process a bit and I don't see him making a commitment any time soon."