Top Orange County Defensive Lineman Signs With CSUN

Randy Sheets, a Times’ all-Orange County defensive lineman from Western High School, has signed a national letter-of-intent to play college football at Cal State Northridge.

The 6-2, 205-pound Sheets will play inside linebacker for the Matadors, who finished 3-7 last season. Sheets was named the Orange League’s Lineman of the Year. He also is Western’s student body president.

Sheets joins fellow Orange County high school player Jared Hjelmstad, a Los Alamitos linebacker, who signed with CSUN last week.

Sheets, who also considered attending West Point, said he visited the CSUN campus and was impressed with the football environment.

“I went down there three weeks ago and I liked the atmosphere I got from the players and coaches. It’s a young program that’s building and that’s the kind of thing I’d like to get involved in,” Sheets said, noting he plans to major in sociology.

Considered by many colleges to be too small to play inside linebacker, Sheets said that what he lacks in size he makes up for in speed and game savvy. He said he runs the 40 in 4.7.

“My best asset is my quickness and my knowledge of the game,” he said, adding that an off-season weight program should help him get up to 230 pounds by August. “I’ve been playing eight years now and know a lot of secrets to help me out.”