After a recent surge of scholarship offers over the past week, Guyer junior quarterback J.W. Walsh got the one he was waiting for Monday.

The dual-threat signal caller orally committed to Oklahoma State after a junior season that saw him emerge on the scene after an injury-riddled sophomore season, which still ended in Guyer’s first of two consecutive runs to the Class 4A Division I state semifinals.

Oral commitments are non-binding. The first day a Class of 2011 recruit can sign a national letter of intent is Feb. 2, 2011.

Walsh got the offer from the Cowboys on Monday, and committed the same day instead of taking time to ponder his options, including offers and interest from his list of “dream schools,” which included Oklahoma State, Texas, TCU and Oklahoma.

“This weekend I was thinking about OSU and Texas, and Texas is on their roll and all, but OSU is rolling good too,” Walsh said. “They still haven’t won the Big 12 or played for a national championship, though, and I feel like I could be the guy to put them over the top and help them win the Big 12 and the national championship.”

Walsh had long-standing offers from Kansas, Arizona and Iowa State, but over the past week his list doubled after he got offers from Houston, Arizona State and, on Sunday, Baylor.

But ever since attending Oklahoma State’s camp over the summer, when he also attended camps at Oklahoma and Texas, Walsh has been a big fan of head coach Mike Gundy and his offensive staff. That staff now includes offensive coordinator Dana Holgorsen, a Mike Leach disciple and the orchestrator of Houston’s offense, which was the nation’s top offense last season.

“He [Holgorsen] told me what he saw of me on film looked a lot like [current Houston quarterback] Case Keenum,” Walsh said. “When he told me that, it made me feel more welcome and like I fit better with the offense than I thought. … There’s nothing like hearing you fit the offense perfectly from the guy that’s gonna call the plays.”

Despite starting just eight of Guyer’s 15 games in 2008 because of injury, Walsh played a key role in the Wildcats’ run, and with a full season at the helm of the Wildcats’ offense in 2009, he helped make Guyer’s offense one of the top 4A offenses in the Dallas-Fort Worth area at 44.4 points per game.

He finished the 2009 season with 2,600 passing yards to go with 30 touchdowns and just six interceptions. He also rushed for 1,563 yards with 25 touchdowns while averaging 9.4 yards per carry.

“Watching Houston, they run a pretty efficient passing game and they moved the pocket a lot,” said Guyer head coach John Walsh, who is also J.W.’s father. “Their quarterbacks were on the move a lot. If it breaks down on third-and-medium, Case is picking it up with his legs, and that’s J.W. It’s a high-efficiency passing game but also allows freedom for the quarterback to go make plays. I think J.W. would be making a mistake if he went to an offense that constricted him.”

Walsh is listed as the No. 2 quarterback in the state, and the 17^th -ranked player overall, according to Rivals.com.

He said his interest in the Cowboys was solidified by his trip to Stillwater, Okla., for the Oklahoma State-Missouri game on Oct. 17.

“It was unbelievable,” Walsh said. “It’s not 100,000 people like Texas but it sounded like 100,000. You could tell the fans had fun. The atmosphere was unbelievable. The way they play there, it was something I’d never seen.”

The commitment comes early in the process for Walsh, but he said he’s glad to have the added stress out of the way.

“I wanted to be an early commit to get the recruiting process out of the way so I didn’t have to worry about the other attention I was gonna get,” he said. “Now that it’s over, it’s a relief and it’s exciting. It’s a good feeling to have that I know where I’m going to school now and can start preparing for the future.

Check out the Denton Record-Chronicle for more high school and recruiting news.