BYU Coaches Did Not Wait Around in Offering OT Thomas Shoaf

BYU added one more offensive lineman to the 2013 recruiting class. Thomas Shoaf is a 6-foot-6, 255-pound offensive tackle who started hearing from BYU just a few months ago. His principal, Principal David Clark has connections to BYU and notified them of some of the talented players at his school.

In March Coach Reynolds made the trip to visit the school and meeting Shoaf along with some other players. After visiting with Shoaf the recruitment began. As Shoaf continued to hear from BYU he was also hearing from other schools nearby. At that time he had offers from Ball State, Indiana and Iowa.

Shoaf also has several ties to BYU as well. Both his parents attended BYU and last year his sister graduated from there. So the family was very excited of the possibility that he also would be attending the school. With several family members living in the valley Shoaf was in Utah this past June, though he was visiting a big reason was to attend BYU's camp.

One of his goals coming to the camp was to get an offer and have the option of playing football at BYU. In regards to the possibility of playing at BYU Shoaf said this, "I was excited, both my parents went there and I've always followed BYU football and I think they do it right."

The coaching was impressed with the size and skill of Shoaf and quickly offered him while he was at the camp. "I was very excited; I had been working really hard to get that offer so I was really excited and relieved to get it" said Shoaf.

Many times like this where we see a athlete who has parents attend the school, grew up following BYU and have family that live nearby as soon as BYU offers they accept. They commit in person, on the spot. Shoaf didn't. Instead he went back to think about his decision.

Shoaf attend Columbus North High School and their rival is Columbus East. Last year one of the top recruits in the nation was Gunner Kiel who attended Columbus East. Originally he committed to stay close to home and attend Indiana. After some time he decided he was going to commit to LSU. That changed again when ended up signing with Notre Dame. Because of that Shoaf wanted to get out of Utah, come back home, think about his decision and make sure when he committed it was his only one. Ultimately it was between BYU and Iowa.

Some of the reasons he chose BYU were because of the good engineering department it has, which is what he wants to major in and the atmosphere. "I was looking for a good team and good atmosphere and where people want play football and care about each other. That is what I got from the coaches they care about everyone and that want to help out."