Nebraska’s ninth commitment for its 2018 recruiting class came from Hoover, Ala. kicker Barrett Pickering.

The 6-foot, 185-pound kicker landed an offer from the Huskers during his visit for the Red-White spring game on the weekend of April 15. The country’s No. 2 rated kicker according to Kohl’s Kicking said he knew for quite a while he was going to be committing to Nebraska before making this public this past week.

“When I came back from the spring game - my mom actually didn’t go on the trip - so I had to talk to her about everything,” Pickering said. “Then that following Monday Vanderbilt offered me. My parents and I just took a little while in deciding.

“They just wanted me to take some time and make sure that I was happy with the decision I was making. They just wanted me to think about it for a little while so that’s why it took a little while after the spring game for me to make a decision.”

Pickering said Nebraska head coach Mike Riley was excited to hear that Pickering would be joining the class.

“I called up Coach Riley and told him,” Pickering said. “Coach Riley was just extremely excited to have me on board. He was just telling me how this was going to be a special class that I was joining.

“It took a few days to get ahold of Vanderbilt to pay some respect to them. Since they offered me I wanted to let them know that I wasn’t going to be going there before I released my commitment on social media.”

Pickering says he has been working very hard to perfect his craft of kicking and feels that coming from a big-time high school program like Hoover should help him make the transition to playing big-time college football at Nebraska.

“Last year we played out on the road at Allen, Texas and that was a sold-out crowd and a pretty memorable experience,” Pickering said. “I think they had like 24,000 or something like that for a high school football game. We’ve also played on T.V. multiple times on like ESPN and things like that so I’m comfortable playing in televised games and in front of a hostile crowds. I think that will help me make the move to college football.”

Up next for Pickering are a couple of camps this summer as well as two more visits to Nebraska.

“I’m going to Jamie Kohl’s camp in May and I’m trying to earn an Under Armour (All-American) gam spot,” Pickering said. “I will probably take a visit up to Nebraska this summer with my family and I’ll also take an official visit to Nebraska in the fall for a game.”