SI99 OL Bryce Foster Evaluating Food, NFL Production Among Final Five Schools
Texas, Texas A&M, Oklahoma, LSU and Oregon.
It's the five national powers still in the running for the nation's top interior offensive line projection in the SI99 rankings, Bryce Foster.
The Katy (Texas) Taylor star lineman, also a track and field star at the school and planning on throwing the discuss and shotput in college, is one of the few prospects in the class of 2021 with recruiting attention dating back to his days as an underclassman and even as a freshman in high school.
Several years later these programs are still very much engaged in landing the All-American Bowl selection.
"It's really cool, I take it as a humbling experience of hard work paying off," Foster told SI All-American. "I've always been the biggest guy playing youth ball but I wouldn't let that just get to my head. I really wanted to keep working on everything, kind of become a perfectionist at what I do and I think that probably has helped me stay at the top."
Despite the national all-star setting shifting to virtual media in addition to canceling the game, being selected for the annual tilt was a full-circle moment for Foster.
"It means the world to me," he said. "When I was younger I would sit and watch the game, watch the former seniors pick their hat. When I was a kid I would put out hats from random colleges and would pretend like I'm choosing my hat and going to this school.
"It's so cool to kind of put myself in their shoes."
The maturity of college football prospects has been tested throughout the COVID-19 era of the recruiting game, even for prospects like the 6-foot-5, 315-pound prospect, who have been recruited for several years.
"COVID has kind of hurt my recruitment a little bit," he said. "I was hoping to get my five official visits, that was really gonna be the main deciding factor on which school I really wanted to go to. Sadly, we don't get those official visits anymore.
"But I think I'm still gonna make the right decision at the end. I've been to most of those schools quite a bit. The only one I hadn't been to was Oregon a lot, that really hurt. Oregon is kind of my dream school ever since I was a kid. It was the school I wanted to learn more about, go there a little more."
Like most, Foster has shifted his evaluation strategy towards committing to one program over the other four on December 18.
"As time goes on I think a picture has shaped in my head a little more," he said. "I'm still not 100% on any of the schools yet. What I ended up doing over COVID was make a little datasheet. I put all the five schools, I put things that I wanted and rated them 1 through 5. Every day there was a different school being number one, two, all the way through.
"It's made me realize what I really need to focus on and what I wanted to know more of. So I've been asking those questions since...it's been the main thing helping me paint that picture in my head."
SIAA's curiosity with the datasheet began with the categories to rank, to which the first the senior mentioned should not come as a large surprise given the nature of the position he plays.
"One of 'em was food," he said with a laugh. "Gotta know how the food is. Coachability, how many guys they've sent to the NFL? How's their track program? Who their throwing coaches have produced and their numbers. I've talked to a few of the players and wanted to know their true feelings on why they chose that place to get a feel for the environment there."
Aiding that process, and perhaps shaping it, were former Taylor High seniors who were going through the process while Foster was picking up early accolades like FBU Freshman All-American.
"Luckily I had a few guys that were seniors getting recruited," he said. "Guys like Otito Ogbonnia (now at UCLA) and Max Wright (Texas A&M), those type of guys. They really helped guide me my freshman year on what it's gonna be like and how to deal with all the stresses and everything that comes with it.
"I really owe it to them because they helped me a lot."
Foster will commit next month and "100%" participate in track and field as a senior before wrapping up his prep career and chasing more lofty goals leading up to his first year of NFL Draft eligibility.
“Just remember my name in the year 2024,” he said. “You'll see the first ever guy get drafted in the first round of the draft and win an Olympic gold medal.”
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