It was 10:30 on a weekday morning, and Matt Meinrod had only been awake for a few minutes.

Meinrod can sleep easy these days. He's much less stressed because he recently made the most important decision of his still-young life: He decided to commit to Florida State University and play for Bobby Bowden and the Seminoles next season.

"I'm still pretty high on excitement," says Meinrod, a 6-foot-5, 280-pound senior guard at East Lake High (Tarpon Springs, Fla.).

	Meinrod is a future Seminole.

It's not unusual for the Meinrod family to have a son play college football. Meinrod's brother, Adam, played football at Navy. Another brother, Sam, is currently a linebacker at the Air Force Academy.

Matt made his decision months ago. The problem was that the Florida State coaches had yet to make up their minds.

Then a FedEx package arrived at the Meinrod residence.

"I knew for the past couple of months that's where I wanted to play," says Meinrod, whose team lost its season-opener, 21-9, to Tarpon Springs High on Sept. 1. "But I wanted to wait for the paperwork to come in so it would be official."

His reasons for choosing Florida State are many. But three were foremost:

"I wanted to stay close to home," says Meinrod. "I wanted to play for Bobby Bowden and I wanted to be part of a winning tradition like they have at Florida State."

Until he received the letter from Florida State, Meinrod had narrowed his prospective schools to five: Florida State, Georgia, Miami, Ohio State and Tennessee.

Attending Florida State's football camp in mid-July only whetted Meinrod's appetite to be a Seminole.

"That was the hardest camp I have ever been to," says Meinrod, who has a GPA higher than 3.0 and benches more than 350 pounds.

One reason Meinrod made his choice so early, with the national signing day more than six months away, was to put the recruiting hassles behind him.

"I was getting all these calls," says Meinrod. "It would be 30, 45 minutes for one phone call. They were calling late at night, like around 11. It was crazy. And it was only going to get worse."

Meinrod also had his own East Lake teammates in mind when making the decision.

"I wanted to concentrate on the football season," he says.

When talking about Meinrod, East Lake football coach Tom Keeler gushes.

"What separates Matt is his speed," says Keeler. "He's about a tenth of a second faster than the rest of the kids. Most of the others run about a 4.9 or 5.0 in the 40 (yard dash). Matt is a solid 4.8. Matt's quick off the ball and gets out on people in a hurry, no doubt. He's the heart and soul of our offensive line."

Although Meinrod is excited about his decision, he says his family members are even more pumped up.

"My dad's like the proud father. But my mom, that's all she talks about," says Meinrod. "My brother Sam, I could hear him yelling in the background on the phone, 'Hey, my brother is going to Florida State.'"