Okafor chooses Huskers
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BY CURT McKEEVER / Lincoln Journal Star
OMAHA — You would think that a college-bound football player who plans to major in biochemistry would find Stanford’s reputation as one of the world’s leading research institutions irresistible.
But Collins Okafor won’t be headed to the Silicon Valley this fall.
“It’s not Stanford,” the Omaha Westside running back said Monday of his college choice during a news conference at the school.
And then he put on a Nebraska cap.
The good news kept coming for Husker fans. Later in the day, it was learned that defensive end Josh Williams of Denton, Texas, was committing to Nebraska ... for the second time.
Williams, 6-feet-4 and 220 pounds, originally committed to NU in July, but switched to Colorado after Nebraska’s coaching shakeup.
He came to Lincoln over the weekend on an unofficial visit and was won over by the new coaching staff.
“They have a lot of energy flowing through that place,” Williams said Monday.
Williams told Husker coach Bo Pelini, and assistants Ted Gilmore and Mike Ekeler, of his commitment Sunday. With him back in the fold and Okafor announcing he’s sticking with Big Red, Nebraska currently has 18 known commitments.
Like his mother and father and an older brother who is now preparing for medical school, Okafor plans to one day be a Nebraska graduate. And, yes, if the 6-1, 210-pounder winds up racking up a lot of yardage to help the Huskers win, that’d be great, too.
“It was everything. You just can’t pick from one thing,” said Okafor, who took his official recruiting visit to Nebraska on Saturday and now is the lone running back in NU’s 2008 recruiting class. Signing day is Feb. 6.
Apparently, it didn’t hurt that running back Marlon Lucky was Okafor’s recruiting-trip host.
Okafor, who spilled the beans and said that Lucky told him he plans to return for his senior season, has “always looked up to him ... so it was great actually being with him. He’s a cool guy, easy to visit with.”
As for Williams, it was the passion of the new Nebraska coaching staff that swayed him.
“He’s a wild guy. He’s impressive,” Williams said of Pelini. “He sounds like he knows what he’s doing.”
Offered scholarships by the likes of Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, Kentucky and Missouri, Williams said he’s not going to be changing this commitment.
It was only a strange situation that made him switch allegiances in the first place.
“Man, it was really tough to go through that,” he said of Nebraska’s coaching change. “You’re thinking it was all over with, that you’re done and you knew where to go. Then the coaching staff gets fired.”
Essentially, Monday’s news was also a recommitment by Okafor, who rushed for 1,525 yards this fall. Remember, it was in October of 2006 that he first said he intended to play for NU.
But after the Huskers fell on hard times and Bill Callahan was fired, Okafor took recruiting trips to Iowa and Stanford.
“I liked Stanford a lot, (but) my mom asked me, ‘If Coach (Jim) Harbaugh wasn’t at Stanford would you go there?’ And I said, ‘No,’” Okafor said. “She also asked me, ‘If Coach (Bo) Pelini wasn’t at Nebraska, would you still go there?’ And I said, ‘Yes.’”
Okafor sounded surprised that during his trip to Stanford the school didn’t emphasize its academic reputation.
At Nebraska, he was impressed by the athletic facilities, but “also the academic side.”
“I went down to the biochemistry lab, and got to talk to the adviser. And the guy who was touring us around was actually a biochemistry major, and that was huge. We didn’t get that at Stanford.”
Okafor called Nebraska offensive coordinator Shawn Watson on Sunday night to inform him of his decision — bad news for the two Stanford coaches who came to see Okafor at Westside on Monday.
Watson’s reaction?
“He was, ‘I’m going to tell Pelini right away,’” said Okafor, who guessed that Pelini was nearby, because he heard Watson screaming as he hung up the phone.
Nope. It wasn’t Stanford.
Reach Curt McKeever at 473-7441 or cmckeever@journalstar.com. Brian Christopherson contributed to this report.
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