South Florida sleeper getting interest

Fort Pierce (Fla.) Central athlete Demario Merricks may end up being another NIKE camp success story. Going into the Miami NIKE camp he was virtually unheard of, but after a great performance he's catching on with college coaches.

"I don't have any offers right now, but my coach said that is probably because we didn't have a spring game and no coaches had a chance to see me play," Merricks said. "I am getting a lot of Kansas, Florida, Auburn, Nebraska, Iowa and Alabama are all sending me a pretty good amount of stuff. I would say that Florida and Iowa are recruiting me the hardest, I get handwritten mail from them a lot."

The 6-foot-1, 159-pound Merricks attended the Miami NIKE camp where he ran the 40-yard dash in 4.61 seconds, the shuttle in 4.25 seconds and posted a 28-inch vertical jump.

"My top five schools would be Florida, Florida State, Iowa, Kansas and Auburn," Merricks said. "I would really like to stay close to home if I could, but really I just want to go to a place where I can get the best education I can."

As a junior Merricks carried the ball 35 times for 850 yards and eight touchdowns. Defensively he collected 40 tackles and four interceptions in just five games.

"Even if I get an offer I probably won't just commit right then unless it's from one of the big three schools in Florida," Merricks said. "I don't want to rule anyone out or anything so I would just take my visits and make sure that I liked the school before I committed. It's easy for me to get to any of the Florida schools and visit, but it's not that way with some of the other schools."

In addition to the Miami NIKE camp Merricks attended a camp at the University of Florida.