Stanford (Ill.) Olympia junior offensive tackle prospect Blaine Halley (6-foot-6, 285 pounds) has spent this summer working on his game along with attending several different college camps across the Midwest. Halley checks in and breaks down his summer travels and much more. get to know this latest name to watch or the State of Illinois Class of 2023 here.
"I was able to get out this summer and attend quite a few college camps," Halley said. "This was the first summer I was able to get out to college camps and overall it was a very good experience. I was able to meet and work with a lot of different college coaches and they really helped me improve my game this summer."
Halley recapped his summer camp travels.
"I was able to camp this summer at Iowa State, UIndy, Missouri, Oklahoma, Kansas State, Illinois State, Iowa, Nebraska and also Northern Iowa. I would say my best camp was either Illinois State or Oklahoma. I just felt that I had good camp performances at those camps and I was able to have a lot of interaction with the coaches at those schools. I was able to work closely with those different coaches and they really helped me a lot with my game. I was able to work with the coaches on having better hand placement, and we also worked on how I can slow down a bull rush."
Does Halley have any remaining camp or visit plans this summer?
"I'm going to camp this weekend at Western Illinois, and I'm going to try to get out to camp and visit either Drake or Western Missouri soon."
Halley also reflected back on his spring football season and how his game has progressed since the spring.
"My spring season overall went really good. The spring season was my first in the varsity so it took me the first few games before I became comfortable then I adjusted to things pretty quickly. The biggest adjustment for me was just getting used to the speed of the game. I played JV football my freshman year so the adjustment from JV to varsity took a little bit of time. I've been working hard on just having better overall leverage and bend. I need to consistently stay low and I just popped up too much out of my stance last spring. I feel like I've been making a lot of progress this summer."
Does Halley have a dream school?
"I would say my dream school would be Iowa State. My parents both went to Iowa State and we all really love the Cyclones and head coach Matt Campbell is a great coach."