Bean will have busy weekend before deciding

Recruiting all of a sudden blew up for Isaiah Bean. For his first three years of high school he played quarterback. Then he made the switch to defensive end going into his senior year. Thirty pounds and 12 months later Bean has new scholarship offers coming in on a daily basis.

The defensive end from Summer Creek (Tex.) quickly learned defensive after never playing it and ended up with 14 sacks this year.

“In the beginning I was nervous because I’d never played it before,” Bean said about defensive end. “But I’d managed to be good at it. I really just focused on trying to get after the ball and that’s what the coaches liked. They like the upside and said I will be able to grow with the position.”

At 6-foot-5 Bean added 30 pounds with no problem in the off season. Along with his explosiveness that is what caught the attention of college recruiters including Calvin Thibodeaux at Kansas. Thibodeaux the Jayhawks defensive line has been recruiting Bean for a while.

“He immediately took an interest in me and then when he took the film back they ended up offering a scholarship,” Bean said. “They were looking for defensive tackles but when he saw me he said he knew we he was going to recruit me.”

It didn’t take the Kansas coaches long to offer after they evaluated his film.

“Coach Tibs said he likes my first step and my motor for the ball,” Bean said. “He said he likes how I don’t stop until the whistle blows. Those are two big things that I worked really hard on. My only other focus is putting on weight.”

The most recent offers for Bean came from Kansas, Illinois, Iowa State, and Cal. He will visit Cal before he starts his visit to Kansas on Friday.

“The first thing I am looking for is academics,” Bean said. “I want to look at who has my major and who doesn’t. The other is what the depth chart looks at my position. The other thing is I’m looking at is can I live there outside of football.”

Bean will have to make a decision to make in the next week in picking a school. At one point he didn’t know if that opportunity was going to happen.

“Something I have always dreamed about is playing big boy football,” he said. “I never thought it would actually happen. Recruiting was going slow at first but then it eventually picked up. It is nice to know that I have an opportunity to play in the Big 12 and other colleges.”