Schafer focused on being great
St. Paul (Minn.) Cretin-Derham Hall is loaded with talent each and every season and offensive tackle Joe Schafer is definitely one of the state's best prospects. At 6-foot-5 and 265 pounds, Schafer has an amazing frame and college coaches truly love his upside once he grows into his body.
But Schafer isn't satisfied with being just good. He wants to be great.
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"I think you can always improve on a lot of things," he said. "I'll say finishing is the biggest thing I need to improve on. I'm pretty good at pass blocking and everything. But I'd say finishing blocks and getting up field are the things I need to work on most."
Schafer, though, is definitely one of the Midwest's best blockers.
"I think my biggest strength is my pass blocking. I got the chance to work against two D-I defensive ends every day in practice this year," he said. "I think that helped me a lot and made me a lot better. One of them is going to Iowa and the other one is headed to Air Force."
"We have a pretty good team coming back. We think we have a good shot at state this year. But there are a lot of other good teams in this state too. So they're going to have something to say about that. For me individually I really want to dominate every game."
As far as recruiting goes, he said his top teams are "Minnesota, Wisconsin, Northwestern and Stanford. Also Notre Dame, Iowa and Michigan."
He said a while back he was thinking about ending the process sooner rather than later, but he's not sure what his timetable for a decision is now.
"I don't really have a timetable at the moment," he said. "I kind of decided I wanted to go to some camps first. I'm not going to rush. I'll probably do it sometime during the summer in like July or August."
A few schools definitely stand out.
"I really like Minnesota, Wisconsin and Northwestern right now," he said. "Stanford, I haven't been to yet so I really don't know."
Will location or other factors play a factor in his ultimate decision?
"It may," he said. "In the end it may come into play. A lot of it is the atmosphere. Mainly it's the coaches and the academics. Then kind of the attitude on campus."