2016 Eastern Michigan Recuriting: Alec Simpson Weighs His Options

You won't hear it from any of the major recruiting websites, but there's a 4-star prospect (depending on who you ask) that has expressed a good amount of interest in playing for Eastern Michigan in 2016.

Alec Simpson is a linebacker from Pacific Palisades, California, which is in the Los Angeles-area. At 6-foot-3 and 205 pounds, this high school junior is starting to receive a lot of national attention, having already received offers from Nevada and BYU.

Eastern has not offered Simpson a scholarship, but he is being heavily recruited by them.

"One of their GA's follows me on Twitter... [Brad] McCaslin has been watching me closely and he likes the way I play," Simpson said, "but he fears that a lot of bigger schools are going to be contacting me, but I told him that I could have an early impact at a smaller school like that."

Even though he hasn't been offered a scholarship to play at EMU, he's definitely being watched. Aside from the two schools that have offered him, Cal, USC, Rutgers, Louisville, Illinois, Oregon, Maryland, Penn State, Ohio State, Texas Tech, UCLA, Washington State, Northwestern, Nebraska and Western Michigan are all teams that have shown interest in Simpson.

"My recruiting is wide open right now... I'll probably start looking at favorites after I take my official round of visits with schools in January," Simpson said.

Like every recruit, he wants to play early and often. There's nothing wrong with that at all. I'd sure hope student-athletes have some sort of desire to play his or her sport when there's an opportunity to do so.

"The main thing making an impact on the coaches early, making sure they know my name, they know my presence on the field early," Simpson said, "I don't want to redshirt."

Again, Simpson is just a junior in high school and he knows better than to have a top list of schools to choose from yet. Which is why he's weighing out all of his options between Eugene, Oregon to Ypsianti, Michigan. Having interest in a school isn't necessarily the same as wanting to play there, but you need to have the prior to get to the latter. Personally, If I'm a nationally-recognized recruit with schools like UCLA and Ohio State looking at me, anything with a letter that has Chris Creighton's signature on it might end up going through the shredder before I even open it. But then again, I've never been a nationally-recognized recruit with a future to think about.

"It would be nice [if EMU offered me]," Simpson said, "It'd be one to add to the list for sure, but I just have to weigh out my options."

Courtesy of Hudl, here is one of Simpson's highlight tapes: