Cameron Meredith surfs. He wasn’t planning on liking this place.

“Just coming from California, you don’t hear much about Nebraska,” Meredith said. “I went there kind of close-minded.”

But before he left here, the highly recruited defensive end told his mother he wanted to stop by the University Bookstore and buy a Nebraska sweatshirt.

“That’s when I knew they were in,” said his mother, Katherine. “We had visited all these other places and he hadn’t gotten a sweatshirt at any of them.”

The high school senior’s short list included Oklahoma and Oregon, but ultimately he said he wants to play football at Nebraska.

He actually knew he was coming this way a couple of weeks ago, right after he finished his visit, but he wanted to tell the other schools before making it public information.

What Nebraska gets is its 21st known verbal commit for 2008.

Last year, playing for Mater Dei High School in Santa Ana, in the biggest football classification California offers, the 6-foot-5, 225-pounder had 60 tackles and eight sacks.

If you care about such numbers, he benches 310 pounds and squats 400, and runs 40 yards in 4.6 seconds.

But the things that his high school position coach Mike Harp says are probably the main reasons Nebraska really wanted him.

“I loved his motor. He had a great motor,” Harp said. “He just had that different gear. He played fast. He played real physical. Even as a sophomore, he wasn’t real intimidated.”

He also had a knack for showing up in big games.

Harp said that last year, in a state semifinal game against high school football powerhouse Long Beach Poly, Meredith won all but five of the charted plays against his guy. That’s against an offensive line loaded with future Division I players.

“And he hasn’t filled into that body yet,” Harp said.

Meredith, who lives in Huntington Beach, said he was recruited mostly by Husker assistant Bill Busch. He also likes head coach Bill Callahan’s coaching style.

“Both are really down-to-earth guys,” Meredith said. “You can tell they’re trying to help kids and not yell at them.”

Concerning the surfing, he said he can always make a trip back to California to meet a wave.

“I think what really changed for him, even though he lives in a big town, he’s kind of a small-town kid, very humble kid,” Harp said. “And from the gas-station attendant to the head football coach, everybody treated him the same.

“I think he loved the small-time town feel and that it could come with big-time football.”

Reach Brian Christopherson at 473-7439 or bchristopherson@journalstar.com.