Darius West already has 10 scholarship offers and there are several other schools showing some serious interest in the 2014 Ohio safety.
Notre Dame is one of those schools and the 6-foot, 195-pounder from Lima Central Catholic High School (Lima, Ohio) spoke with Irish assistant Mike Elston last week.
“He was just letting me know that they were interested in me and are going to keep recruiting me through this whole process,” West said of Elston. “He just wants me to be patient with them.
“I’ve got plans to try to get up there. I’m trying to go to the Junior Day.”
West, who has offers from Illinois, Indiana, Penn State, Purdue, West Virginia, Cincinnati and Louisville among others, has an interest in the Irish.
“Obviously they were just in the national championship, which is really good, but the main thing I know about Notre Dame is academics,” he said. “That’s always been the main thing about Notre Dame, which is really what’s going to affect my decision whenever I make it.”
West plans on majoring in either business or sports management and will be evaluating other factors as well.
“The coaching staff, the coach’s backgrounds,” listed West. “The coach from Notre Dame has a real good background with a good philosophy. The type of defense the coaches run, how close I get with the other coaches and the environment that I’m going to be around.”
A handful of offers are already standing out to West.
“Penn State, West Virginia, Indiana, Illinois and Louisville are my favorites right now,” he said. “Indiana and Illinois, I really like them because they come see me a lot. They talk to me any chance they get.
“Penn State, Coach O’Brien, he’s a real good coach. He’s turned down a lot of offers just to stay there and coach, that’s how you know it’s going to be a good program in the future. Louisville, Coach Strong is a real good coach and I like him.”
He’s visited some of his favorites already and is looking to get to more soon.
“I’ve been to all of those schools except West Virginia and Penn State, I’ve got to get down there,” he said. “I’m going to try to get to Tennessee, they’ve been wanting me to get down there for a while.”
West is honored to have the offers he has.
“It makes me hungrier to get more and keep doing what I’m doing to be successful,” he said.
West’s combination of size and 4.4-speed is clearly attractive to college coaches.
“The first thing they always see is my size,” he said. “Once they see my size, they want to see everything I can do. A lot of them tell me I have real good hips, my footwork is good and I’m real explosive and physical.”
West is in no rush to make a decision and might not make one until after next season.
“I think I want to really narrow it down right before the season, so I don't have as much stress on me during my senior season so I can enjoy it.”
