Texas OL heading to the Big Ten

Perhaps one of the bigger sleepers in the state of Texas is Cedar Hill (Texas) High School offensive lineman Josh Allen. One team has known about him all along. Minnesota was the first team to offer him and through mid-October is still the only team to offer him. On Wednesday, Allen rewarded Minnesota by committing.

"I committed today," Allen said. "Basically they've been keeping in constant contact with me and showing me improved interest. I like the school, it's got the major that I want (architecture and mechanical engineering) and I just felt like I had nothing to lose."

Allen committed to Minnesota without having ever visited the campus. He will be taking an official visit the weekend of October 30th. Without seeing the campus though, Allen still felt at home knowing that Coach Tim Cross would be there.

"Coach Cross really was the main thing," he said. "Basically all the coaches are sending me letters, hand-written letters, and coach Cross is constantly emailing me and sending me updates on their games and checking up on me and stuff like that."

Last season, Allen was an offensive tackle in Cedar Hill's dominating run game. This season he has been switching between offensive tackle and offensive center. In college, Allen doesn't know where he will settle on the field.

"They said they might see what I can do at other positions," he said. "I played defense all the way up to sophomore year. I'd like to play defensive end or defensive tackle but wherever they put me, that's where I'll work the hardest at."

Though he isn't ruling out taking other visits, Allen does feel strongly about his commitment to Tim Brewster's program.

"I'm firm to this commitment," he said. "I would go visit other schools just to please my mom because she still wants me to wait a little bit but I'm firm on this commitment though.

"I was excited when I first told my mom and then I told the coach. I've been thinking about this for the past three weeks so I figured I might as well go ahead and do it. It's what I wanted."

Allen is rated by Rivals.com as the No. 11 offensive center in the country and a 5.7 three-star. He has helped Cedar Hill get out to a 6-0 start to the season and the No. 7 overall ranking in the RivalsHigh top 100.