September 11, 2010

Four-star DE breaks down five favorites

Deion Barnes has narrowed his focus to five schools and the four-star defensive end from Philadelphia (Pa.) Northeast has already visited all but one of them.

Nonetheless, the 6-foot-5, 220-pound prospect wants to get back to each of those schools to learn even more about what life would be like in different places.

Pitt, Penn State, Michigan, South Carolina and Georgia are Barnes' five finalists and he has been to all of those schools except Georgia. Why did each of those schools make the cut?

"Those were the [schools] that were hitting me up the most [earlier] during the recruiting period," he said. "Those are just the ones I really want to see the most. I'm thinking I'll probably be taking [official] visits to all of them.

"I like the coaching staff at Pitt. I didn't see too much of the campus life or whatever but that's why I want to take official visits. I just want to get to all of them and see what they're like.

"I like coach [Larry] Johnson at Penn State. He turns out a lot of defensive ends to the NFL. He's a good teacher so I like that. Touring the campus I liked that a little bit.

"Michigan is the school that's been hitting me up the most. I've watched them and they're doing pretty good. That could be a good situation for me.

"I've been down to South Carolina a few times. I've been down there a lot and I've started to get comfortable with them. I like it down there a little bit.

"With Georgia they've got that 3-4 defense and their defensive coordinator coached Demarcus Ware the year he had 20 sacks, so he knows what he's doing."

With several of those schools playing in big games on Saturday, Barnes is planning on keeping up with how they do. He'll be doing film work on a team Northeast will be playing in a couple of weeks, though, so he won't be able to make it out to any games.

So far Northeast has struggled, but it hasn't been because of Barnes and the defense. Last night they lost 7-0. The school was down to its third string quarterback and the offense could not get started. In their first game they lost 21-7 as the offense struggled in that contest, too.

"It's nothing you can do about it but we've just got to learn from our mistakes," Barnes explained. "If it was midseason then we'd have a problem. It's just the beginning of the season so we'll get it together later."

Barnes said he has been in contact with West Virginia, Pitt, Penn State, Michigan, Georgia, Purdue and others since the contact period started up a couple of weeks ago.
