High School Dreams: Early Aspirations and Recruitment did you believe when you were a sophomore junior at cville high that you were going to play at the top level of D1 like what was your recruitment process like were you a late bloomer you know how were you able to stand out and get you know I I think originally committed to Oregon and then end up texam two incredible programs how did you get those offers yeah I think for me Slow Start: The Challenges of Getting Noticed kville is a sleepy Town 45 50 miles outside of San Antonio so you know coaches recruit in the state of Texas it's usually you know Dallas Houston San Antonio and then you'll get some Texas like you have some Austin you know but those are kind of like the five areas that are recruited if you start getting outside of those big cities unless you're a really big Powerhouse kind of a football program or something you don't get a ton of eyes um on you unless you're starting to do some really spectacular things so my recruiting process was very slow um sophomore year nothing junior year really getting into the tail end after football season maybe around that spring I remember being in a baseball practice um you know February March something of after my of my junior year and starting to get some offers smaller offers and I felt like I was playing really good football we were a great team going to a state semi-finals we were um you know in the mix as a team aspect and I was doing what I felt I needed to be doing um you know individually and didn't really start getting any offers until then and then they weren't anything that I was like super over the the moon about I felt like I was better than um a better player than going to some of these smaller schools and then it really Breakthrough: The First Big Offer changed I came into the office one day of my senior year at the very beginning of year and had a full ride to Stanford wow had never talked to anybody never had talked to a coach had just got your normal recruiting letters that you get and then one day A letter came in it was a lot bigger than the other letters that I normally get and I opened it up and it was a full ride to Stanford and I remember thinking whenever that happened I was like okay well worst case scenario I'm going to get a chance to go to Stamford and whether football or not works out get one of the best educations that you can get you know in the world and after that you know got a couple pack schools Oregon ended up offering me as I went to go visit Stanford and Oregon kind of at the same time and then um Texas A&M didn't come in until really really late and I ended up committed in The Decision: Choosing Between Oregon and Texas A&M Oregon I wanted to play for Chip Kelly and love the you know uniforms the Nike connection they were really good going to a Rose Bowl every year and um I ended up committing there and then about three months later two months later I got an offer from instate school which is what I wanted you know for my family to have to go to Eugene Oregon tough to get to from 2our drive from kville and then a 4H hour flight to Portland and then hop on another flight to Eugene it was just like you know I'm never going to see my family I'm going completely across the country and across the world from everything that I had known and when the Texas S&M offer came in you know it was easy for me to say hey I'm going three hours away now so you're a 17 18 year The Tough Call: Decommitting from Oregon old kid having to call up a coach decommit I actually went through something similar so I committed to Ohio State for hockey um and then not fun yeah it's the worst so yeah talk about like how much it beats through your chest I remember like my brother and I working through it trying to console like how do we deal with this like can you help me out he's my little brother too and I'm like please like I don't want it to deal with this guy yelling at me on the phone and that stuff just it gives you a ton of anxiety uh but it does make you more of a man as a young person like how do you remember having did you call Chip or did you call I remember walking in when I got a couple days after I got the A&M offer and my head footb coach Mark Smith was an amazing is an amazing man and he uh he could kind of sense with me that I was weighing on the option of having to do that and we had a conversation one morning and pretty much said all right if you want to go to Texas A&M we're going to pick up the phone right now we're going to call Chip Kelly and I remember looking at him being like no weird you can find out online yeah just email him let's go the time is being a kid when oh you don't want it you want to be away from 17 years old you want no part of the controversy or anything nothing I remember him standing over me like I can see it in my head as clear as this day of him being like we just pick up the phone we're going to call him I'll start out hand the phone to you and you just tell him what your decision is pretty much going to be and he didn't take it well uh I remember getting off the phone feeling absolutely dejected of the fact of having to do it and funny story you Full Circle: Meeting Chip Kelly Again know three years later in 2014 I go to the NFL draft and the combine and at the combine you do a set of interviews I had eight teams on my sheet that interviewed me were the Philadelphia Eagles and CH Kelly and uh on the phone whenever I decommitted from him he said have fun playing for pretty much an inferior school for the most part Oregon's going to the Rose Bowl Texas A&M is going to probably not very good bowl games back then and um after winning a Heisman I got a chance to go back in there and kind of Raz them a little bit me and Chip always seemed to have you know he he he he didn't take it too hard looking down the road they ended up having Mariota guy wins a Heisman he goes the NFL like you know the the it all worked out for all parties involved so um you know we had a good laugh about that a couple years later