MKRob Sports

Nick Montana, a quarterback at Oaks Christian High School in California, has made a verbal commitment to play football for coach Steve Sarkisian at the University of Washington, according to a report by the Los Angeles Times.

Montana, son of former NFL star Joe Montana, visited Washington last weekend.

Here’s the blog report by the LA Times, which says its information came from Montana’s high school coach.

The report also says Joe Montana has joined the Oaks Christian football staff in Westlake Village, Calif., and will be his son’s quarterback coach next year for his senior season.

The news takes a lot of the sting out of last week’s decision by Skyline High quarterback Jake Heaps to attend BYU instead of Washington.

Montana, a 6-foot-1, 185-pound junior, is ranked as the nation’s No. 13 quarterback in his class by Scout.com. He reportedly has received scholarship offers from Notre Dame, Ohio State, LSU, Alabama and Georgia.

His father played at Notre Dame before going on to his Hall of Fame NFL career.

Nick Montana played at star-studded Oaks Christian last season after transferring from De La Salle, where he was the junior varsity quarterback as a sophomore. Here’s a Los Angeles Times story on the Oaks Christian situation last year, which notes that one of the players he was competing with at quarterback was Wayne Gretzky’s son.

Oaks Christian, a private school with an annual tuition of nearly $22,000, also produced Notre Dame quarterback Jimmy Clausen. Actor Will Smith’s son played on the JV football team last fall.

Montana earned the starting role in his first year at the school last fall and threw for 2,404 yards with 33 touchdowns and seven interceptions last fall while completing 133 of 241 passes for the 14-0 Lions.

However, because the team didn’t play much top-flight competition, it didn’t get invited to California’s final CIF bowl tournament.

That apparently will change next year, however. Oaks Christian has already scheduled a trip to Washington to face Heaps and his Skyline team on Sept. 18 in a game that will be televised on ESPNU.