Mid Atlantic
Greenbelt (Md.) Eleanor Roosevelt safety Okechuckwu Okoroha is gaining interest after an impressive showing last week at the Elite College Combine. Following his solid performance, the 6-foot, 180-pounder claims four scholarship offers.

"The Elite was really good, there were a lot of great players and competition," he said. "There was the kind of competition I haven't seen in a long time. I felt like I did what I could, but I still didn't do enough. I really wished I batted more passes down, although the quarterbacks there were precise.

"I think I did play well. I showed the coaches I can play in space. I know that was a big question mark they had with me."

Okoroha went on to discuss his offers.

"I have a lot more coaches coming to my school, and now I've got offers from Connecticut, Boston College, Temple and Syracuse," he said. "I'm thinking about a lot of these schools. It's hard … I'm interested in everyone right now."

While four have offered, a few other schools are getting closer.

"Rutgers, Illinois and North Carolina are talking to me a lot and have mentioned an offer," he stated. "I know Illinois has said I shouldn't worry about an offer, it should be coming soon. Rutgers wants to see my test scores first."

Defensive tackle Reggie Ellis out of Washington (D.C.) Dunbar was the most impressive defensive player at the Elite College Combine last week. That's why the 6-foot-3, 285-pounder walked away with defensive MVP honors.

"I thought it was great," he said. "There were great people there and tremendous atmosphere and they gave us the opportunity to showcase our abilities.

"I think I proved I'm a physical player with speed. If you watched my film last year, my knee and ankle gave me problems, but all that stuff is behind me now. Overall it was great to work out in front of guys like Urban Meyer and others."

Since the Elite, Ellis has gained a few more offers.

"Recruiting has picked up a lot," he said. "I've got offers from Pittsburgh, Boston College, Connecticut, Syracuse and others that I'm not sure off the top of my head. I think I'm around eight to 10 offers total."

Midlands
The spring evaluation period has put more Heartland prospects on the map, and a few of those are naming early favorites.

Texas prospects such as Denton Ryan defensive end Josh Williams and North Garland safety C.J. Cox have added their first scholarship offers over the last few weeks. The early offers for Cox are Oklahoma State, Nebraska, and Wisconsin — with the Huskers being in the early lead.

Williams, the 6-foot-4, 210-pounder, says that he received offers from Baylor, Missouri, Oklahoma State, and Nebraska. Williams, originally from Louisiana, says that he’s also waiting to hear about possible offers from LSU and Florida.

Jenks, Okla., defensive tackle Tony Gillespie made an early commitment to Oklahoma State in March, but shortly thereafter informed the OSU coaches that he was re-opening his recruitment.

Gillespie said that it had nothing to do with a lack of interest in the Cowboys.

“It’s all on me and family-wise, it was a decision made with my mom and me,” Gillespie said. “Everything kind of happened a little too fast and I need to worry about high school because college is going to be there and the offers are going to be there.

“So I’m opening it up, but I’m not forgetting about OSU at all. OSU is my No. 1 still, and I’m just going to kind of ignore the recruiting process for this next month or two and just focus on getting in tip-top shape for Jenks.”

Gillespie said schools that are showing a lot of attention include Arkansas, Florida, Florida State, Michigan, Michigan State, Tennessee, UCLA, and others.

Things continue to heat up for Norman (Okla.) North athlete K.J. Williams. With a lot of talk coming after his successful performance at the NIKE Training Camp in Texas a few weekends ago, he says he’s hearing from more schools.

“I had offers from Texas Tech, Iowa State, and Kansas State going into it, but I’ve started hearing from a lot of new schools since then,” Williams said. “I’ve been hearing from A&M. After the camp I got a text message from Coach (Van) Malone. I texted him back a couple of times.”

Williams, having moved from Baton Rouge to Oklahoma this past August, says that he’s open to all schools.

Midwest
Few players have had as strong of a month of May as Strongsville, Ohio, receiver D.J. Woods.

Last Tuesday, Woods impressed at the Elite Skills Camp in Cleveland. He walked away with new offers from Pittsburgh, Indiana, Iowa, Kent State and Ball State. He then did great in the one-on-ones at another combine last weekend, and he hopes to cap it off with a noteworthy performance at the NIKE Camp in State College, Pa., on Saturday.

Primarily a wide receiver, Woods spent much of the offseason improving his hip-turns and footwork to develop the skills necessary to play in the defensive backfield. Several colleges indicated that an offer could be in the works if he showed that he has the ability to play defense.

"I think I did really well on offense and felt comfortable there," Woods said. "But, I was really shocked at how good I did on defense."

Detroit Country Day running back Jonas Gray was prepared for this past Saturday’s NIKE Training Camp in West Lafayette, Ind., for quite some time. After frustrating defenses as a junior and testing well at a recent NIKE Combine in Columbus, Gray had set his sights on doing well at the NIKE Camp. He did better than that, he dominated.

Gray wasn't 100 percent because of a tweaked hamstring, but he was still able to look good in the one-on-ones. He displayed great footwork in the SPARQ training and position drills. He was also able to show flashes of his 10.5 second speed in the 100 meters during drills and in the one-on-ones - when helpless linebackers tried to stay with him.

"I've been working toward this for the longest time," Gray said. "After the camp last year in Columbus, I saw a running back get the MVP and I said to myself, 'That's where I want to be next year.' Even if you're not getting recruited big, guys that earn MVP get something that nobody can take away from you. A few guys were like 'Why are you here, you've got a bunch of offers?'

"I'm just a competitive-type player. I came to compete. That was the biggest thing for me."

Gray likely solidified himself as one of the nation’s premiere running backs with his performance. He rushed for 1,252 yards and 19 touchdowns as a junior.