Thran talks about visit to Cal

One of the most dominant players in the West region this past year was Gresham (Ore.) Barlow two way lineman Bo Thran. Thran, 6-5, 270 pounds took his first official visit of the year to Cal this past weekend but said he won't be ready to make his decision until he takes two more visits in mid-January.

Thran was dominant on both sides of the line this past season and was recently named 1st team all-state as both a defensive and offensive lineman. Most schools are recruiting him as an offensive lineman and that is likely where he'll end up in college.

As for his visit to Berkeley this past weekend, Thran said it was a great learning experience for him.

"Man, I now know more about Cal than any other school, even the in-state schools," Thran said. "Scott Smith was my host and he was cool. I liked him and the rest of the guys a lot on the trip a lot. I hung out with all the linemen there and I liked the family atmosphere and you can tell the players and coaches have a pretty close relationship.

"Cal has a great academic reputation and I learned a lot more about how they do things there. The football players have to compete pretty hard with the other students but that's fine with me. They have a summer bridge program where you can get a pretty good head start the summer before school begins in the fall and I thought that was pretty interesting. I'm still not sure what I want to study in college but Cal has some great options in a number of fields.

"Justin Wilcox is the coach recruiting me and he has been great. He's from Oregon and actually played at Oregon so he knows a lot about where I'm coming from and said I would have no problem making the transition from Greshman to Berkeley. The campus was great and I really liked everything about the visit. The weather was just OK but nothing I wasn't used to.

"Right now, I'm just going to enjoy the holiday season and then I have two other trips set for January, I'm visiting Oregon State (Jan. 13) and Oregon (Jan. 20). I definitely plan on taking those two visits before I make my decision. I don't have a leader right now among those three colleges but those are the three I'm looking at and I should be ready to decide close to signing day."