Isaiah West planned to get out to a few schools in the spring, then make several official visits in June.
After a winter visit to Kentucky and conversations with his family, the Philadelphia St. Joseph’s running back will only make two visits — and both are to Kentucky.
The 5-foot-11, 208-pound West announced his commitment to the Wildcats Friday evening, and it became an easy decision when he started running through his options.
“I was on my visit (a month ago) and kept saying I wasn’t going to commit and not to get caught up in things,” West said. “I kept reminding myself of that and then on the plane ride home, and when I got home and was talking to my parents, we have this whole chart to make my decision, and I was telling them, ‘There’s nothing wrong with this place.’ ”
North Carolina, Wisconsin and Nebraska were among the other programs heavily involved but there was too much going Kentucky’s way for West to go anywhere else.
“I remember when I first got the Kentucky offer, my teammate who (signed) there, David Washington, he came running down to come find me and he told me, ‘Bro, you gotta get down there,’ ” West said. “I remember his whole process. He was looking around at schools and he didn’t know where he was going to end up at, and he went down to Kentucky and the whole process shut down. I said I wanted to see it for myself.”
West plans on majoring in sports medicine, and Kentucky fits into that plan as well.
“I went there and Kentucky was the first school that showed me the educational side of things outside of football,” West said. “I want to study sports medicine and they took me to a hospital and I got to meet a former player who also studied in the medical field.
“It was a lot of school and one question I always had was how do you balance that with football, and he broke that down for me.”
The idea of learning from running backs coach Jay Boulware was appealing.
“He coached a lot of great backs, Joe Mixon, a guy still in the league, and he spent some time with the Steelers and coached Najee Harris, and I feel like he can take me to another level,” West said. “At Kentucky, I feel like I can fit into their offense.
“I really like the scheme. Coach Boulware was telling me when I was there that they run a pro-style offense, especially with the new offensive coordinator (Bush Hamdan).”
