Olympus outside linebacker/defensive end Cameron Latu leapt straight up and waved his long arms to take away the pass.
As Washington State commit Cammon Cooper lowered his throwing arm, Latu dropped his shoulder and wrapped him up, spinning him around before bringing him to the ground.
Cooper ultimately won that battle between the two Division I commits Friday, a 33-3 Lehi win over Olympus. But even on a 3-3 team, attention finds Latu. The University Alabama commit brought a level of recruitment to Olympus that the Class 4A-turned-5A program rarely has seen before, and it continues despite his commitment.
The 6-foot-5, 236-pound defensive end/outside linebacker hadn’t expected the offseason of his junior year to be filled with official visits around the country and his phone buzzing with texts and calls from some of the most respected football programs in the country. But that’s what the six months ahead of Latu’s commitment to Alabama were like.
“My recruitment blew up for some reason, and I’m just very blessed because of it,” Latu said. “Going to college for free was my main goal since I first put on shoulder pads, and I’m achieving that goal, so I’m just happy about it.”
Coaches’ calls and visits to Olympus picked up when Latu, a four-star recruit who had a strong showing at the U.S. Army All-American combine in January, announced his de-commitment from BYU on Jan. 25.
Re-opening my recruitment📝 pic.twitter.com/XDw28u9sAz
— Cameron Latu🌴 (@cameronlatu40) January 25, 2017
“It was difficult to teach last spring,” Titans coach Aaron Whitehead said, “because every day you’d have four or five big-time coaches pulling you out of class to go see Cam.”
Alabama co-defensive coordinator and outside linebackers coach Tosh Lupoi was one of the first to show up at Olympus, Whitehead said.
“You see some classy groups of people come through in terms of colleges,” he said, “and the guy’s wearing a full-on suit with his lapel with the little A symbol. You don’t really get awe-struck ever when a college coach comes in.”
CAMERON LATU <br>School • Olympus <br>Year • Senior <br>Position • Defensive end/linebacker/tight end <br>College • Committed to Alabama
But Lupoi was a strong presence.
According to Whitehead, Lupoi took one look at Latu and told Whitehead that they’d like to have him come down to visit the school.
Latu made three total visits to Alabama before he announced his decision to join the Crimson Tide on Aug. 4.
“Despite all the recognition that he’s been getting, he’s been keeping level head about himself,” Whitehead said.
Whitehead gets to watch Latu interact with his fellow students in two of Whitehead’s classes, weight training and U.S. government & citizenship.
“Every high school has cliques, Olympus has cliques, but he’s nice to everybody,” Whitehead said about Latu. “He’ll say hi to people, he’s not above it all, and I love that.”
Latu moved to Utah from Minnesota with his family in 2013. He left a seventh- through 12th- grade school in Chisholm, a small city less than 100 miles south of the Canadian border, to end up at Olympus. With more than 15,000 students, Olympus is almost a third the size of Latu’s entire hometown.
When he arrived in Utah, he was mostly young, raw talent. Whitehead said Latu struggled to move on from mistakes on the field at first, but he’s grown into a disciplined team leader.
Latu said his football IQ has improved greatly, and it continues to do so every day. He studies J.J. Watt, Von Miller and Khlil Mack, among others, to see what he can pull from their play, what moves he can steal.
“Their intensity level is insane,” he said. “They just never stop. They’re work horses. They don’t know how to quit. It’s like impossible for them.”
Whitehead said he sees something similar in Latu.
“He’s Clark Kent in the classroom, and then he steps onto the field and starts evolving into Superman,” Whitehead said.
Latu’s tackle on Cooper in the second quarter Friday brought the Pioneers to third-and-11.
Cooper knew better than to go to his right again, where Latu battled two offensive linemen, trying to reach him. Cooper’s pass to the left side of the field sailed out of bounds, and the Pioneers sent out the punt team.