“There’s a question I haven’t heard before,” Springfield head coach Rick Robertson laughingly when the question was posed to him of where DePriest is going after the MVFCA All-Star game in June. It was done satirically; he had talked earlier this year about how much the question had been posed to him, and I jokingly asked it before Robertson had a chance to talk about the game. However, after he was done addressing the game, Robertson talked about his thoughts on DePriest’s recruitment.

“I just talked with him yesterday,” Robertson said after the game, which took place on June 11. “He just came back from a visit to Alabama and had a great time down there, and he’s got some other things he’ll be doing to look at the schools he’s [interested in]. One of the things we talked about in the spring when Ohio State [made a recruiting visit] was coming up and spending some time at Ohio State in the summer. So, he went to the Alabama camp, because that made sense time-wise, and he’s going to make the effort to go over to Ohio State and spend some time there… he’s weighing all of his options.”

It’s already been a busy summer for DePriest with his recruitment, but with official high school football practice starting in less than a month, and with 7-on-7 camps sprinkled in during July, Robertson cast doubt on the question as to whether or not DePriest will commit before the start of the season.

“We’ve always used the line with all of our kids, ‘If you don’t play football, do you feel comfortable at that school?’. If you can say yes, then you know you made a great decision. So, if he doesn’t make the decision beforehand, that’s fine. I want him to be happy.”

DePriest narrowed down his list of finalists in June, which also included Florida in addition to Ohio State and Alabama.

The Crimson Tide were in fact the first school DePriest visited the summer, as he attended a camp in the second week of June in Tuscaloosa and got to spend time with Alabama’s recruiting staff, including head coach Nick Saban.

“The encouraging thing for us as Alabama fans was that he didn’t show up, but he brought his mom and his whole family down with him, and he wanted them to see the area,” said Larry Burton, a featured columnist on BleacherReport.com, during a phone interview in June. “That told us that he was very serious about having us on his list.”

Burton runs a recruiting agency out of Florida and has written for several Alabama publications, and he also covered the Crimson Tide’s national championship run last season for Bleacher Report. He said that one of his scouts who attended the camp talked to DePriest about the his experience at Alabama.

“One of my scouts talked to Trey, and they said that Trey was very pleased with the area, that his mom liked the area, and the he is very concerned about going somewhere that he feels comfortable in.”

Burton said that Alabama’s staff “definitely” wants DePriest, and that they are going “all-out” to lure him to Alabama.

“He would fit in well with Alabama’s line backing [corp],” Burton said. “We look at things in four-year increments here [in terms of recruiting] because we know most players will leave early for the NFL. [DePriest] would have a good two years of backup and learn from talented players [at Alabama], and would have two years to shine on his own.”

Burton said that Alabama’s already seen the benefits of the “BCS-bounce” in attracting players as a result of their national title run in 2009. DePriest was high on Alabama’s radar long before their title, so, Burton says, it should help the attraction.

“There’s a lot of competition for him, though” Burton added. “But he’d fit in well [at Alabama].”

And there’s really no where DePriest wouldn’t fit in. One scout The Springfield Paper talked with earlier this year said that DePriest is good enough “to play anywhere in the country” and, most likely, excel.

But, with nine months left until signing day, there’s really no rush to commit, Robertson pointed out.

“Trey’s said all along that, before he makes his decision, he wants to do “due justice” to the school’s that he’s looking at,” Robertson said. “He’s going to take his time and do that, and that’s the smart thing to do.”