How these NFL stars broke the hearts of Utah college football coaches

During the height of the Pac-12 days, Utah and Washington waged war over California recruits. To the Utes staff, it felt like every time Huskies corners coaches Jimmy Lake or Keith Heyward got in front of a recruit, they’d steal a commitment.

“We battled for kid, after kid, after kid,” Utah cornerbacks coach Sharrieff Shah said.

Then, Shah had a breakthrough. He spotted a three-star corner named Sidney Jones out of West Covina, Calif. Shah got him on campus, sat him down in his office and Jones said, “Coach, I’m coming. I’m committing to Utah.”

Shah meticulously kept Jones away from Washington.

“I’m so fired up,” Shah recalled.

Then…

“He takes his trip to U-Dub, his official visit, and commits to U-Dub. Happens on the visit,” Shah said, shaking his head and laughing.

“I’m like Sidney, ‘What are you doing?’” Shah remembered almost pleading. “He goes, ‘Coach, I didn’t know I was going to love it.’ I’m like, ‘I did, that’s why I didn’t want you to go.’ ... Oh my, he about cut my heart out.”

Jones is now an NFL veteran — a second-round pick by the Philadelphia Eagles in 2017. The miss stuck with Shah. Not only because he loved Jones, but because any time an NFL player gets away, it lingers.

“I regret about six or seven kids that we didn’t go on [recruiting] that turned out to be NFL kids,” Utah running backs coach Quinton Ganther said. “It is a talent to evaluate talent.”

With the NFL draft this week, more scar tissue is about to be added for recruiters. These are the stories that already haunt Utah’s coaches.

Roman Wilson — Michigan, draft prospect

BYU wide receivers coach Fesi Sitake boarded a plane bound for Honolulu in 2018, thinking he was about to land a quarterback.

Jayden de Laura was a four-star prospect with offers from a few Power Five schools. He came from a football factory — the same high school as Marcus Mariota and Tua Tagovailoa. De Laura looked like an equally good prospect, winning a state title as a junior and the player of the year as a senior.

Behind him, there was an up-and-coming quarterback that BYU had its eyes on.

Sitake’s job was to put BYU in front on both recruiting paths.

But when he got there, he kept seeing a young receiver named Roman Wilson.

“When we saw Roman, we were like, ‘This guy can burn.’ He’s fast, we got on him,” Sitake said. “He was really skinny at the time. We got on with him early and had a great relationship.”

De Laura ended up going to Washington State. But Sitake was worried about Wilson. BYU invited him to campus. Before his junior season, Sitake offered him. It seemed like a risk. He didn’t have the stats to support it.

That changed quickly. By the end of his junior year, Oregon, Michigan and UCLA all came on board. BYU was out of the running and Sitake knew it.

“He started to blow up,” he said. “... You always think you are close to someone. I don’t know if Roman was truly considering BYU. I don’t know if Roman would have actually come. So my near-misses are more like, we were on them first. Developed a pretty good relationship.”

Wilson is now one of the best receiving prospects in this year’s draft. He won a national title at Michigan and logged 1,707 yards and 20 touchdowns as a Wolverine.

George Kittle — San Francisco 49ers

Weber State head coach Ron McBride had an ace in the hole, so to speak, when it came to Oklahoma recruiting.

If BYU’s problem was it couldn’t hang with the blue bloods, WSU’s issue was its cash-strapped recruiting operation. Weber didn’t have the resources to hop on planes and get recruits from all over the country.

But McBride hired one of his former players, Kamaal Ahmad, as a workaround. Ahmad was from Oklahoma and played for McBride at Kentucky. He had a knack for evaluating talent. So McBride would send him on a one-way ticket back to his home state and let him work for weeks at a time.

He’d drive his parents’ car. “He’d stay at his grandma’s house or stay at his dad’s house,” McBride said. “So we could recruit down there and it wouldn’t cost us a lot of money. ... Not having to pay for food, a car, lodging.”

For the first time, Weber State was getting recruits from outside the region with consistency.

In Oklahoma, Ahmad found George Kittle. He was playing in Norman, Okla. He had offers from Air Force and Navy. Weber got in on the action early.

But the staff quickly found out about Kittle’s connections to Iowa. His father won a Rose Bowl with the Hawkeyes and his mother was a Hall of Fame high school athlete. When Iowa eventually offered, Kittle signed and became one of the best tight ends of all time.

Still, the unique recruiting strategy of cutting costs helped. McBride did the same thing to recruit Hawaii.

“We hired the Kaufisis and different people that worked at the airlines. They can fly to Hawaii for free. And they could stay relatives there,” McBride said, chuckling.

They may have missed Kittle, but they punched above their weight class.

Trent McDuffie — Kansas City Chiefs

If the Sidney Jones’ recruiting war was a “stab in the neck” as Shah put it, the Trent McDuffie sweepstakes were even harder to swallow.

For a long time, the future Super Bowl champion was a Utah recruit. He was a slightly undersized out of St. John Bosco in California, but he was a dynamic kick returner with speed and strength.

Shah went out to California and met McDuffie’s father. The relationship grew so strong that McDuffie visited Utah on his own dime. Shah practically landed him.

“In my office, I had a great meeting with his dad. Loved this kid and he was saying, ‘Man, Coach, I could see myself at Utah,’” Shah remembered.

“He ended up going to Washington. And I’m like, ‘Wait what? How did that happen?”

Washington won another recruiting battle. Shah got another recruiting scar.

“You try not to get calloused over it and have the belief that, ‘Ah, it will be OK,” Shah said. “If this kid says he likes it, he really likes it. ... If he says he is committed, he really is. Maybe. I hope.

“But every recruiting class there’s somebody you love. You invest your time. And then it’s, ‘Coach, I just wanted to tell you …’”

Mykal Walker — Atlanta Falcons

Long after McBride left Weber and Jay Hill took over, WSU had another chance to land an NFL talent.

Then-running backs coach Quinton Ganther was in California scouting and saw an under-recruited inside linebacker.

Mykal Walker was coming out of Vacaville High School. He wasn’t ranked by 247Sports. But the measurables were there at 6-foot-4 and 200 pounds. Not to mention, Vacaville had molded NFL linebackers before. Zach Nash was drafted by the Cardinals in 2013.

Ganther came back to Ogden and pounded the table. Walker would come, he said, if they offered.

“We turned him down,” Ganther said. “It wasn’t my position, so I didn’t have the last say.”

Walker ended up going to Azusa Pacific. He recorded 40 tackles, a sack and an interception as a freshman. The next year he had 102 tackles and two picks. He transferred to Fresno State and was a fourth-rounder picked by the Falcons.

In Walker’s case, it was the staff that did Ganther in.

“A lot of times, guys want their guys. It’s just how it works,” he said.

Still ...

“That was a miss that kicks me in my a--,” Ganther lamented.