Kraft gaining Midwest attention

Over the past few years, the Wichita (KS) area has become one of the deepest hotbeds for recruiting in the Midwest. In 2009, one of the earliest names to appear has been Bishop Carroll LB Garrett Kraft. As the recruiting season for the junior has kicked into another gear, he has seen new schools enter the picture. He added that he hoped one school joined that group in the very near future.

"It's been good," said Kraft. "I've been training hard and trying to do things right in recruiting. I've been talking with Iowa State, Oklahoma, and Kansas. I've also gotten a few letters from Alabama, Oregon, and Vanderbilt. I'd like to start hearing from Missouri and I've sent them some video. I talked to Colorado a little bit last week also."

Kraft said a lot of his time talking with coaches has been based on starting relationships with the different schools and starting to get to know each of them individually. While most of the conversation has been about the basics of the school, he said that he has often talked about a specific question with several of the schools.

"We've talked a lot about position choice," said the 6-foot-2 Kraft. "Most of the schools want me to play at defensive end because I've already got the strength to play there, but I need the college size. I've got pretty good explosion off the line, but right now, I'm still a little small for the line."

As he has continued to learn about schools, Kraft has planned to make his presence known over the next few weekends as the culmination of spring practice he said that it would not be the first time he had gotten a chance to see a school and that he would have the same good feeling after he left the campus.

"I went down to Oklahoma for their junior day and I got a chance to sit down with Coach Venables and he was a lot of fun to talk with," said Kraft. "I'm going to go to Kansas' spring game this coming weekend. After that, I know I'll be going to Iowa States junior day and spring game. I now I'll be camping a few different places this summer. We'll be going around to quite a few different schools for their one day camps. I'll probably camp with Kansas for sure, but after that, I don't know."

Kraft said living in Wichita had helped him to become a better player as he got older. He added that when you played against great talent, often the competition would be stronger and be better overall.

"It's been great playing against some of the guys in the area," said Kraft. "You want to try and do your best against the best and with the talent in the area, it really helps. I've been working with James Byrd and Bryce Brown and we're all trying to push each other to be better."

While he had already heard from a variety of schools in the Midwest, Kraft admitted that the one team he hadn't heard from, Missouri, was a team he hoped to learn quite a bit about. He said that as he watched the team last year, it wasn't just the offense that had impressed him on the way to a 12-2 record.

"It's a great school," said Kraft. "They've got a great tradition and they're looking to get better. I think they had a great year last year and I want to get to know the coaches. I want to see what they have off the field as well and see what kind of academics they could provide me. I think their defense realized that they had to step it up to match what the offense did. Defense wins games and you can't expect to outscore everyone. They haven't gotten the most highly known guys, but they sure went out and made a name for themselves."

For now, Kraft said, he would continue to train and hope that offers were coming his way. Although he didn't currently hold on, he thought in the coming weeks, he might be close to getting his first offer.

"Right now, I don't have any offers but I'm hoping that when I go to Kansas this weekend as well as next weekend that I might be able to get a little closer to an offer," said Kraft.