Cameron Meredith, the 6-foot-4.5, 222-pound, three-star defensive end from Mater Dei High School in Santa Ana (Calif.), now has nine scholarship offers with the latest coming from Oregon State, Washington, Colorado and Oklahoma.
Meredith said he favors Oregon, Oklahoma and Arizona solidly over Nebraska, USC and UCLA. Of those, only the two in-state schools haven't offered.
"I'm going to the USC camp this weekend and hopefully they'll start paying more attention to me," Meredith said. "If USC or UCLA offered me they'd definitely be one of my top choices, but I'm not really hearing much from either of them."
One school that Meredith is hearing a lot from is Oregon. "I like the environment there a lot. It's really green and beautiful," he said. "Also the coaches are great and I like coach Mike Bellotti. I actually talk with him quite a bit. He talks with you like a normal kid and I never feel like he's pushing me to go there. It's not just about football with him."
Another thing that Meredith likes about Oregon is their business school. "I want to major in business and possibly go into real estate development or own my own business," he said. "I'll definitely be looking for a program with a good business school."
Although some of the big in-state schools haven't offered, Meredith does have offers from some of the best schools in the Big 12, including Oklahoma. "It's a big-time football program," he said. "Football is huge in the south and I love their tradition. My brother goes to Baylor and Waco is only like two hours from Oklahoma, which means he'd be able to come to my games."
Meredith says that distance won't be a factor for him, but that his parents would prefer he stay in the Pac-10. "That's one of the things I really like about Arizona," Meredith said. "They are an up-and-coming program and they aren't too far from home. I talked with coach Mike Stoops and he thinks it's really funny that he's recruiting against his brother to get me. He didn't realize that I was considering Oklahoma too."
Despite the fact that Meredith named a top three, he doesn't plan on making an early commitment and says that anything can still change. "I'm leaning towards taking my time," he said. "Recruiting is nice because it means people are watching me and like me, but it's tiring too because it's tough to do homework and take calls from coaches. That does get frustrating."
He reports a 2.7 core GPA and says he's qualified considering his test. "I didn't like my score though and I'm gonna take the SAT again in October."