FSU making up ground with Daytona Beach OL

With a pressing need to load up on quality offensive linemen, the Seminole coaches are not going down without a fight when it comes to Daytona Beach Mainland's Cruz Barrett. The 6-foot-4, 314-pound offensive guard made a surprising commitment to Nebraska earlier this month but since then received a scholarship offer to play football at Florida State, his childhood favorite team.

On Monday night, he received an in-home visit from FSU offensive line coach Mark McHale and running backs coach Billy Sexton, who are trying to convince the talented lineman to rethink his decision. For now, he is sticking with his commitment but the 'Noles have made up some ground and now it looks like he will make an official visit next month.

"Before I was like no more visits and was okay with what I chose, but I'll have to think about taking a visit up there," Barrett said. "I just want to compare for now, just to give them a chance."

Through the spring, summer and most of the fall, the Mainland OL strongly favored FSU but that changed after getting an offer from Nebraska and visiting Lincoln. The Seminoles finally offered a couple weeks ago and Barrett admits he was a little miffed that it took so long for the FSU coaches to pull the trigger on an offer.

"Yea, but like he (Billy Sexton) said that's how coach Bowden does his recruiting," he said.

Even though FSU has made some headway with the most recent visit, Barrett still speaks very highly of Nebraska.

"I like pretty much everything," Barrett said of the Huskers. "They have a good academic program, they have the most academic All-Americans, they have what I'm interested in majoring in (computer engineering), have a good staff with good coaches. I also got along with all the '06 recruits and got along with the team."

The Rivals.com No. 36 ranked guard says he is leaning to taking a visit to FSU and that it will probably take place the weekend of January 13th.

The three-star recruit also received a scholarship offer from Florida on Monday but says it's unlikely he will visit the Gators.

Barrett is fully qualified with a 3.6 GPA.

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