Fanaika honing in on his commit decision

PLEASANT GROVE — To say that Pleasant Grove's Brandon Fanaika has a lot on his plate would be an understatement.

The top offensive line prospect in the state is now up to at least 11 scholarship offers with not a stated favorite among them.

When the season started, he was up to nine offers and decided to put them out of his mind, as well as he could, for the duration of his senior season. Now that the season is over, Fanaika has two more offers to consider.

"Auburn and Arkansas just offered me," he said. "They started showing a lot of interest during the season and have really been recruiting me hard, so that's good. It was kind of a surprise when they started coming out, but it was a blessing."

Fanaika's offer list now includes Utah, Utah State, BYU, Arizona, Arizona State, Washington, Washington State, UCLA and Stanford, along with those two most recent offers. It's a lot to sift through, particularly for a high school senior.

He started going through that sifting process this summer, making numerous unofficial visits, but still entered his senior season without a favorite in mind. With letter-of-intent day roughly two months away, Fanaika understands that he'll have to make a decision soon.

In order to do that, he's loosely scheduled four official trips in order to gain a final determination of which program is best for him. While he still doesn't have a favorite school in mind or even a stated top five or three schools, a look into which four schools he plans to visit officially is certainly of note.

"I'm probably going to take official visits to Utah, BYU and to Stanford," he says. "You could say those are my three favorites, but I'm really wide open right now. I'm also looking at tripping to Auburn and seeing what they have to offer down there. Those are probably the schools that I've had the most contact with."

While being readily familiar with local programs such as Utah and BYU, Fanaika has also been able to familiarize himself with Stanford, having made a couple of unofficial visits there this past offseason.

"I really like Stanford and what they have to offer," said the 6-foot-3, 305-pound prospect. "It's an amazing school, and I'll get an amazing education there, and the football program is up there with the best. I have a strong relationship with the coaches there, and I really like them a lot."

He isn't sure when he'll be making his official visit to Stanford, but he will most likely head to Palo Alto in mid-January.