Lake Central High junior Riley Arvanitis is a fullback prospect who can carry and catch the football, and is receiving his fair share of college attention as a result.
He has been to two junior days, Indiana and Iowa, and the 6'1, 225-lb prospect says both were positive experiences. Last weekend's trip to Iowa was a full day's worth of the Hawkeye experience.
"It was a lot of fun," Arvanitis said. "When we first got there, we took a little tour, saw the locker room, changed into the uniforms and took a big group picture. Then we went on the field and they showed us how they do the swarm and that was really cool. Then we went to the weight room to talk to the strength coach."
Then the players went with their position groups to watch film and see the ins and outs of their respective positions at Iowa. Arvanitis went with the running backs.
"All the coaches I talked to said they saw my film, were impressed by what they saw and invited me to summer camp. I'm pretty sure Coach Erb knew I was a fullback, but the meeting was geared towards tailbacks. There were four of us in the room and three were tailbacks, but they included stuff about fullback too. I could play either one, but I do like fullback a little better. I just want to win. It doesn't matter."
The weekend prior, Arvanitis went to home state Indiana for their junior day.
"Indiana was great. I actually went there last summer, for summer camp and I got discouraged a little bit, because I was just getting into my junior year and I didn't get as much attention as kids being seniors were, but when I went to junior day a week ago, it was completely different. Coach McCullough took a liking to me and the new offensive coordinator happened to be a fullback at Oklahoma and me and him got along real well too. I think that was a really good visit."
More visits are on the horizon for Arvanitis, who says he wants to see as much of what's out there as possible and not limit himself this early in the process.
"This weekend we're supposed to go to Arkansas, but we rescheduled to two weeks from now because coach had family obligations. In two weeks, we're going to Tulsa and hopefully Purdue after that, and I just got invited to Toledo today, but I don't know if I can make that one."