Cody Zeller is being recruited as a basketball player. But right now, he’s just enjoying watching football games.

The Washington Hatchet junior center and one of the nation’s most prized recruits in the class of 2011, Zeller has been busy making unofficial visits this fall to colleges he’s interested in playing for. And who just happen to be hosting big time college football games at the same time.

Already this season, Zeller has seen Ohio State host Southern California and travel to Bloomington to face the Indiana Hoosiers; Notre Dame entertain Michigan State at Notre Dame Stadium; and Michigan play at Iowa. This Saturday, his unofficial football odyssey will take him to Ann Arbor for the Big Ten Showdown between the Wolverines and Penn State. Last weekend, he traveled to Chapel Hill for a reunion with his brother Tyler and to catch an alumni basketball game as well as the Tar Heels’ gridiron battle with the Citadel.

But make no mistake about it, these visits aren’t just of the kind to make famed college football announcer Keith Jackson envious. The 6-9 1/2 Zeller — who led a 21-3 Big 8 Conference and sectional championship team with 15.0 ppg and 7.1 rpg despite missing five games with a broken bone in his hand last season — has a purpose for visiting all of these schools.

“I’m a big football fan, but all those schools are ones that I’m interested in. It gives me a chance to see a football game and see the campus, check out the fan base and tradition,” Zeller said Tuesday after school.

The seemingly ongoing recruiting process for the Zeller family that began with Luke Zeller in the early part of this decade and continued with Tyler Zeller has now fallen squarely on the shoulders of the youngest member of the Zeller hoops dynasty. Just as they did in past years for the older brothers, college coaches are making what is now a very familiar trek to Washington to catch Cody in open gyms at the Hatchet House. With Zeller not playing a fall sport this year, he’s been in the gym often, and several schools have sent representatives during the fall recruiting period, including a recent early morning visit from University of Florida head coach Billy Donovan.

Thus far, Zeller has scholarship offers from six Division I schools — Indiana, Purdue, Butler, Iowa, Ohio State, and Florida. In addition, he is getting recruiting interest from the two schools who were winners in the previous Zeller basketball lottery in Notre Dame (Luke) and North Carolina (Tyler) along with Michigan, UCLA, Stanford, and Wake Forest.

Cody says the experience of his brothers is helping him this time around.

“It definitely helps. I went on a lot of the visits with Luke and Tyler, I was getting to know the coaches before they even starting contacting me,” said Zeller. “I knew a lot about the colleges before they even starting recruiting me.”

There are many factors Zeller is observing on his visits, but it’s relationships he builds with those people he would spend most of his time with at a particular school that are most important.

“The biggest thing is the players and coaches, the relationships with them. Those are the guys you are going to be around when you go to college. That’s where the football games come in, hanging around with them, seeing what they’re really like,” said Zeller.

“There’s a lot of other things that go into play as well, like the facilities, the fan base, the tradition. But I would say the biggest thing is the players and coaches.”

It’s a process that doesn’t have an end in sight. Zeller says he definitely wants to take some official visits to schools, something he can’t do until he begins his senior year of high school next fall. That’s a good thing because he readily admits “I’m not anywhere close to making a decision.”

His brothers have blazed quite a trail for him, with Luke winning Mr. Basketball in 2005 while leading the Hatchets to the 2005 Class 3A state championship, and Tyler repeating both of those feats three years later. But rather than be burdened by those accomplishments, Cody uses them as motivation.

“They definitely made it tough on me, but I’m proud of them. They’re great players, I try to work as hard as I can, try to get their work ethic,” said Zeller. “I just try to work as hard as I can day to day, maybe some of their accomplishments will come to me.”