Daniel Demery has grand designs on a career in engineering — biomedical engineering, to be specific.

“I’ve always liked engineering since I was a little kid,” Demery told SI Sooners. “I started building things in my house when I was like 5.”

Now Demery is hoping to ply a future in college football into a degree that’s widely rated as one of the best for college graduates.

Demery, a 2023 wide receiver/safety prospect from Parish Episcopal School in Dallas, currently holds 18 Division I football offers, including Arizona State, Arkansas, Baylor, Colorado, Georgia Tech, Michigan State, Ole Miss, Nebraska, Penn State, Texas, Texas A&M, USC and Wisconsin.

Recruiting has been weird, of course — he said last month that his most recent virtual visit was to Texas A&M, and he was impressed — but he can’t wait for the NCAA dead period to be lifted on May 31.

The 6-foot-1, 195-pound Demery is a 4-star wide receiver as rated by 247 Sports, but Rivals projects him as a safety. 247 Sports also ranks him as the No. 15 safety in the nation, the No. 23 overall prospect in the state of Texas and No. 183 overall nationally.

So which is it? Safety or wideout?

“Kinda both,” Demery said. “When it comes to the recruiting process, most of my offers have been at defensive back, but I’ve had a few that come as a wide receiver as well.”

Demery said he’d prefer wideout, but isn’t exactly locked in. He still has two years of high school football ahead of him. Parish Episcopal went 10-1 last year as Demery contributed nine catches for 121 yards on offense and 62 total tackles and five passes broken up on defense.

Demery said he’s spoken with Oklahoma coach Lincoln Riley and said “It was good. I can tell he’s a really good coach. He’s just really down to earth.”

The OU offer hasn’t come yet, but Demery has been impressed by what he’s seen of Norman so far.

“I can tell their campus looks really nice, and their academics are good,” he said. “So that’s the main thing for me when it comes to choosing the schools, is academics.”

Demery said his mom is a dialysis technician, and being around her workplace has given him insight into the medical field. That and his curiosity about building things makes biomedical engineering an appealing post-football career.

So he said he’s put to use the tools made available in the virtual recruiting world by asking questions he might not normally ask under a more conventional recruiting setting.

“Most of it’s just like about academics and how they will set me up in the future, like what job offers they can help me (with), what internships and things like that,” Demery said. “Just basically like what level of education or degree I can get if I go to their school.”