Valen Erickson, from Chicago (Ill.) St. Rita, has jumped on the radar for Nebraska fans. It was a little more than a month ago when Erickson was doing a virtual tour with the Huskers that ended in an offer. A couple of weeks later, he was in Lincoln for the spring game. This weekend, he wrapped up his official visit to Lincoln.
“I got there Friday around like 12:00,” Erickson said. “Flight is super easy. It’s only like an hour. I met with all of the coaches and had a photoshoot.”
The 6-foto-6 and 315-pound offensive lineman met his host and another Husker o-lineman. He also spent most of the weekend with two of the other official visitors.
“Henry Lutovsky was my host. I was with Henry and Teddy Prochazka quite a bit this weekend. I met all of the other recruits. Ashton Craig and Landon Samson were the two recruits I spent the most time with.”
Erickson said that some of the most interesting things this weekend happened Saturday. Nebraska is committed to NIL and players making money off of their brand.
“We had a team meeting on Saturday,” Erickson said. “We talked with the nutritionist, coach Zach Duval, and we talked about branding ourselves and NIL. I also got a chance to talk to coach Greg Austin for like two hours to talk football.”
Nebraska has a plan for Erickson in Lincoln. It has him starting off inside and eventually moving outside to tackle. He is all for that plan.
“Coach Austin says that he wants to see me start off at guard and then slide me out to tackle. The offense is similar to what we do in high school already. I am open to doing guard first and then doing tackle.”
There was plenty of face time for Erickson with the head coach on the weekend. He actually had two separate sit-down meetings with Scott Frost. It’s still surreal for Erickson to talk to Frost, considering Erickson is originally from Florida.
“On Saturday, I met with coach Scott Frost, and then again on Sunday. Kind of unreal being a kid from Florida seeing coach Frost growing up as the coach at UCF and then he’s recruiting me at Nebraska. I really like him.”
The theme for the weekend from all of the visitors was “family”. One of the big reasons was the dinner that coach Frost hosted at his house on Saturday night.
“On Saturday night, we went to coach Scott Frost’s house for dinner. We were all there and the recruits took off, but the parents stayed there until like 11:00 or something.”
Erickson has been to Nebraska before for their spring game, but this weekend was about meeting the staff which he couldn’t do before. That part blew away all of his expectations.
“It was a ‘10’,” Erickson said. “Flat out. It was a ‘10’. The staff was unreal from Sean Dillon to all of the recruiting guys to coach Austin to coach Frost to coach Mario Verduzco. Also coach Matt Lubick and my favorite was the quarterbacks coach.”
The official visit to Nebraska was one of two that Erickson is planning. He will go check out an SEC school later in the month and isn’t sure when he will make his decision.
“I don’t necessarily have a timeline. When the time is right, I will make a decision. I am going to do Tennessee later this month. I think that will be the last weekend. That will be an official visit. I think that I would like to make a decision this summer or before the season starts.”