Quite a few colleges and universities expressed interest in Nikolas Hall, 6-foot-6-inch, 300-pound offensive lineman from Akin High School in Austin, Akins Head Football Coach Joey Saxe said in an interview.
"I probably spoke to 25 college coaches and I kept telling them the same thing," Joey Saxe said in a CBS Austin story published Aug. 23. "He’s a gentle giant."
Akins said in the same interview that he was confident his choice to commit to the University of Kentucky was the right one and that his impact on the Akin Eagles program is hard to beat.
"It sucks to not have the record that everybody else has, but I couldn't see myself playing for anybody else," Hall said. "This is my family."
At that point, Akins was 7-21 since his freshman year and the Eagles hadn't won more than four games in a season. That hardly mattered, Hall told the CBS affiliate.
"I preach on loyalty and dependability," he said. "I've been with most of these guys since I started playing football in seventh grade."
Before his commitment to UK, Hall also visited Arizona State, Colorado University and Oklahoma State, according to 247Sport's profile on Hall. Hall visited UK in June and was recruited by the university's Associate Head Coach Vince Marrow.
Hall received a total of 13 offers in five visits, according to 247Sports.
"It's official," Hall said in his Twitter post. "#COMMITTED"
His Twitter post also included an image of himself in a No. 70 Wildcats jersey.
Now an Akins senior, Hall said in another interview that he's learning to use his body and strength now but is still having fun in the game, even if the dozen scholarship offers he received during recruitment proved a challenge.
"At first it was really fun to get all these texts on Twitter and these phone calls," Hall told Spectrum Local News in a story published last week. "I wanted to commit to Kentucky because I already knew that it was my home. I really didn’t want to keep going through with this recruiting process during the season. I wanted to focus."