Merritt happy to have first offer from older brother's school

The first offer for any recruit is always a memorable one and oftentimes that moment won't come until a prospect's junior year. However, in some cases schools see enough to make an offer early ... really early. For Clovis (Calif.) Buchanan two-way lineman Matt Merritt that first offer came Thursday and it just so happened to be a Power Five offer from a school his family is becoming quite familiar with.

Arizona defensive line coach Vince Amey has ties to that part of California and he stopped by and liked what he saw from the freshman prospect. It also doesn't hurt that Merritt's older brother, Richie, is a redshirt freshman linebacker for the Wildcats.

Now, Matt has an offer from Arizona and his recruitment is underway.

"It's a great start," he said about picking up his first offer from UA. "It's a very great start to my recruiting process with a big a Pac-12 school like Arizona. I'm very excited to see what happens, and I really think this will help me a lot in my recruiting process because like I said it's a really big school."

At this point there haven't been a ton of discussions between Merritt and Arizona although he has been out to campus to see his brother. He has not been on a visit as a recruit yet but that will likely change now, but getting an offer from UA was certainly a welcome surprise as it wasn't an offer the 2020 recruit was expecting just yet.

"It's pretty cool since my brother goes there and I can really see myself going there," he said. " ... I had no idea. They came and saw me at my school today (Thursday) and I was not expecting it at all."

For Merritt his approach to recruiting will be a bit different than his brother since he does play a different position. The freshman plays both on the offensive line and the defensive line and he said right now the feeling is that Arizona is looking at him on defense. His brother now has experience playing for defensive coordinator Marcel Yates and the UA defense so that has meant getting a chance to become a little more familiar with how the Wildcats run things on that side.

"I like Arizona a lot and I like how they run the defense," Merritt, who plays both defensive end and defensive tackle, said. "They use their speed a lot too and I feel like I would fit really good with them."

Merritt said Arizona has been the only program showing interest at this point, but the offer could certainly change things and should bring more attention his way now. Moving forward the freshman plans on leaning on his older brother for advice about the recruiting process as he eventually gets to the point where he will make his own decision.

"He gave me some advice and just told me to keep working and pushing hard to keep trying to prove myself to all these schools," he said. "He just wants me to push myself to be the best I can be."