Bradley Gompers wasn’t able to put together the junior season of high school that he would’ve liked to, but that didn’t stop him from continuing to build bonds with college programs across the country over the last few months.
Gompers, a 6-foot-5, 200-pound three-star athlete from Central Catholic, picked up an injury that forced him to miss the majority of his season with the Vikings. But he still went on numerous visits to major programs, returned for a playoff run — helping the Vikings to a WPIAL title berth — and he’s now on the clock when it comes to his recruiting process over the next few months.
“It feels good, the process has been going great, still anxious to see what happens in these next couple of months, I think they’ll be big for the recruiting aspect of things,” Gompers told Pittsburgh Sports Now Thursday. “But I’m definitely excited.”
He currently holds offers from Boston College, Cincinnati, Pitt, UNLV and West Virginia, but he’s picked up interest from Notre Dame, Michigan, Michigan State, Penn State and Wisconsin over the last few months, too.
“I’ve got a lot of schools talking to me,” Gompers said. “Boston College, Pitt, West Virginia and Cincinnati are some that have already offered. I’m talking to Wisconsin, Penn State, Michigan, Notre Dame a little, and Michigan State. I’ve talked to a bunch of schools, I wouldn’t say I’ve started to narrow it down yet, I still have my options pretty open. But with these next couple months, with the visits I go on, I think things will start to narrow down.”
Gompers took gameday visits to most of his major interests, including Boston College, Penn State, Pitt, Michigan, Michigan State, Notre Dame and Wisconsin, and despite the lack of playing time during the fall, his recruiting process was as busy as ever.
It’s been an exciting if exhausting process so far, getting to attend major rivalry games, sold-out shows and check out a lot of facilities, and he’s definitely been able to form an opinion on just about every school he’s interested in. But the next couple of months will be important as he closes in on a — likely — summer commitment.
There’s a dead period currently underway, which will open up in January, and then close back down in February, before opening up again for an extended spring. Gompers would like to get all of his official visits out of the way and lock down a commitment over the summer — possibly before the summer really even kicks off.
Gompers, who holds a 5.3 weighted GPA entering the second half of his junior year, is looking for a school that can offer the best of both worlds when it comes to academic and athletic achievement.
“Football is not everything, in my opinion,” Gompers said. “After football, hopefully I have a chance to play in the NFL, but if I don’t, I gotta have a backup plan. Education is a big part of where I’m gonna go. I wanna go somewhere that has the best of both worlds athletically and academically.
“I would say academically is the biggest thing, but I would like to go to a bigger campus, more people, I thrive in bigger environments where — I came to Central, a similar place, I was like a little fish in a big pond, but I kinda made my way as I went. So, I would like to go to a bigger school probably, but I’d say the main thing is academics and how good the team is football-wise and what conference they’re in.”
He’s picked up offers — and interest — from prestigious academic institutions, and that will clearly factor into end decisions, but football is still important. And as it stands, he’s still figuring out exactly what position he will be playing at the next level.
He’s been offered as a linebacker, some teams view him as a tight or just a straight up athlete, but the majority of programs view him as an outside linebacker.
Gompers has played both ways as long as he can remember, all the way through his high school career, but his instincts and athleticism at linebacker are intriguing. He was instrumental in the Vikings’ playoff run — racking up 17 tackles and a field goal returned for a touchdown in the WPIAL Class-6A title game.
Rivals is the only major recruiting service to have ranked Gompers at this point, viewing him as the 28th-ranked athlete and 16th-ranked recruit from Pennsylvania, but 247Sports and On3 will certainly update their rankings in the months to come.
Gompers doesn’t have a leading school at this time, content to let the recruiting process play out over the next couple of months, but he does have a list of contenders already emerging from his list of offers and interests.
“I would say some of the schools that have offered me, Pitt, Boston College, West Virginia have talked to me probably the most, as have Wisconsin and Penn State,” Gompers said. “Those are some of the ones that have really shown a lot of interest in me — probably the most interest in me. I also like Michigan and Notre Dame; I hope to maybe get offers from them.”
Pitt was the second school to offer Gompers, with the official offer arriving after a strong camp performance last summer, and the status of being the hometown school certainly doesn’t hurt. But it isn’t going to be what makes or breaks the relationship.
“I’ve probably gone down to Pitt more than any other school, so it definitely adds to the value of their school,” Gompers said. “But I’ll feel out the process with Pitt and with the other schools and see where it takes me. I think that it being so close is a plus for me, but I still gotta see what happens in these next couple of months. ”
It will be important for Pitt, and all of the schools interested in Gompers, to get him on campus as many times as possible over the next few months.
come to PSU…it puts Tight Ends in the NFL every year, huge campus and 110k every week.
Pedophile State University. ‘Nuff said