SoCal athlete gets first offer

Quarterback/athlete Taylor Martinez (6-1, 185, 4.5) Corona (Calif.) Centennial is seeing his stock blow up ever since he attended the NIKE SPARQ Combine when he landed the highest SPARQ score out of every quarterback from the Golden State.

During that impressive SPARQ combine, Martinez ran 4.6 laser 40 and that equates to about a 4.4 hand held. The Martinez smoked the shuttle by running a sizzling 4.16 shuttle and recorded a 36.5 vertical.

Martinez further enhanced his stock with a standout performance in front of the whole Pac 10 and many other D-I last month when Centennial head coach Matt Logan opened his practice for the D-I schools.

At one recent camp, a source told Rivals.com that they thought that Arizona bound quarterback Matt Scott was going to be hard to replace, but after he was Martinez perform, he feels that Centennial may not skip a beat.

Colleges are also taking notice as the Nebraska Cornhuskers were the first out of the box to offer Martinez a scholie.

"I just got off the phone with Nebraska defensive coordinator, Carl Pelini and he offered Taylor a scholarship," Casey Martinez, Taylor's dad said. "He said that he came to Taylor at the showcase as a free safety recruit, but he left thinking he could play either position. Nebraska offered Taylor as an athlete."

"Colorado State has said they want to make Taylor a Ram on either side of the ball, but they haven't pulled the trigger with an offer," the elder Martinez said. "I talked Hawaii's quarterback coach, Nick Rolovich and they are very impressed with Taylor and now they have him as one of their top quarterback prospects nationally."

"Vanderbilt and Iowa State are recruiting him hard as well," Martinez said. "Taylor has a very busy camp schedule coming up. We plan to hit three camps in eight days. He is reviewing what camps he's going to attend."

One of the reasons news was slow on Martinez getting out was that he played for San Bernardino (Calif.) Cajon as a junior so he kind of got lost in the shuffle. He was an all-league and all-county selection as a junior while playing for Cajon.