You Should've Tried Harder
The winners of the 2017 NCAA Division 1 football recruiting cycle, which closed last winter, were once again Alabama.
Not only had they hauled in six — six — 5-Star prospects.
They added eighteen more players rated 4-Star on top of that.
Ohio State, who landed Chase Young and Baron Browning, and USC, who picked up two outstanding defensive tackles, hadn't done badly either — but there was simply no comparing them to Alabama.
And thanks to all that,
Alabama had been in festival mode since the new year began.
#. August 12, 2017
#-1. Tuscaloosa, Alabama, USA
#-2. University of Alabama
#-3. Head Football Coach's Office
Yesterday afternoon, reports of an eerily identical theme landed simultaneously in the offices of all 87 NCAA Division 1 football programs across the nation.
Summarized in two lines, they went roughly like this:
Dwayne Moi Stone has grown even further.
Acquire him, even if it means selling the school.
It wasn't a story that deviated much from what they'd already known.
And yet, never had a single subject so completely captivated every program at once.
Pass completion rate: 84% (31/37).
Passing yards: 307.
Touchdown passes: 4.
Rushing attempts: 3.
Rushing yards: 37.
Turnovers: 0.
Everyone said Kahuku High School was the best team in Hawaii — but even so, these numbers were monstrous.
“They're all thinking about 2020 and nothing else.”
“Probably, Nick.”
“That's a foolish way to think.”
Last year, Nick Saban — utterly captivated by Dwayne Moi Stone — had built a long-term recruiting project.
Recruit For Moi.
A project known internally as RFM.
The RFM project — regarded by the Alabama football staff as the single most important undertaking of the program — had one purpose: to turn the Crimson Tide of 2020 through 2022 into the most dominant roster in school history.
At the same time, the best reputation and results in Division 1, which they currently maintained, had to keep coming.
An extraordinarily difficult balancing act.
But.
It was a thought — and a practice — only possible because the man attempting it was Nick Saban.
“You think that team gets better just by landing Moi alone?”
“….”
“Perhaps. Maybe the boy is talented enough for that. But nobody — nobody — is thinking about that boy's dreams and ambitions.”
Every NCAA D1 decision-maker shared the same conviction right now.
Dwayne Moi Stone would change a program's history.
And he could build a dynasty.
But Nick Saban knew better than anyone that even the most brilliant quarterback had limits acting alone.
And that Moi knew it, too.
Which was why he had overhauled his recruiting plan from the ground up.
To build a team for Moi.
The proof was the 2017 freshmen class.
This year, Saban poured more effort into recruiting offensive players than ever before.
He brought in Alex Leatherwood, the nation's #3-ranked offensive tackle, and Jedrick Wills, Kentucky's finest OT, along with two more promising 4-Star offensive linemen.
And above all, he placed enormous weight on reinforcing the wide receivers and running backs who would run the offense alongside the quarterback.
If the O-line was the shield for Moi,
the receivers were his weapons.
Recruiting prospects with utter seriousness, Saban painted them a picture: the day a razor-sharp arsenal would surge and strike freely at the fingertips of a quarterback of boundless promise.
The result: Najee Harris — ranked alongside Cam Akers as the best high school running back in the nation — joined the class, and so did Henry Ruggs and DeVonta Smith, both hailed as big-play wide receivers.
But apparently even that wasn't enough, because Nick Saban went out and poached two more wide receivers other D1 programs had already earmarked as future starters.
Naturally, the other schools complained.
Saban didn't so much as sniff at it.
“Only the ones who survive will be going with Moi.”
“The competition this year should be quite a show, then.”
“And I'll give Tua his time.”
This year, Alabama had also added Tua Tagovailoa.
Hawaii's best quarterback from last season.
The team's current starting QB was Jalen Hurts, but both were planning to declare for the NFL after finishing their junior years — so Saban dreamed of a quarterback lineage flowing from Hurts, to Tua, to Moi.
He also hoped that Tua being from the same Hawaii as Moi would play a crucial role on the recruiting trail.
“The problem, though….”
“?”
“It seems I'm not the only one thinking this way.”
“Which schools?”
Having scrutinized this year's D1 recruiting landscape with care,
Saban flagged three schools as danger zones.
Georgia.
Penn State.
USC.
These three universities had already broken ground on the same project he was running — building a team for Moi.
So they could build a dynasty alongside him.
#. Same time
#-1. Los Angeles, California, USA
#-2. University of Southern California
#-3. USC Head Coach's Office, Heritage Hall
Every NCAA insider knows just how absurd the national high school football rankings really are.
Stray outside the Top 100 and the objectivity plummets.
And yet, it's also true that nothing better exists.
More than a million high schoolers play football across the country, and evaluating every last one of them was simply impossible.
So every D1 recruiter looks at the rankings first.
They scout the players inside the top 200 first.
If a prospect looks promising, they dig deeper.
On-field performance, of course.
Whether he respects his head coach and assistants.
Whether he gets along with his teammates.
His academics and attitude.
His home environment, and so on.
Once that vetting was done, each university assigned its own scores and rankings, and the true priority board was built from them.
And by that measure, USC's internally evaluated recruiting score this year was an A+ beyond any argument.
The Trojans landed every single player they wanted this cycle.
Not one slipped away.
Which was exactly why the men in that office were all smiling.
“We have to think long game.”
“We absolutely killed it this year, though.”
“We did. But there are guys we must bring in next year, too. Amon-Ra, for one.”
“The Mater Dei wide receiver?”
“That's the one.”
USC's head coach nodded.
Clay Helton, who had inherited the program after Steve Sarkisian was fired amid last year's slide, had received one momentous request from the school itself.
We'll guarantee you a generous contract — so lead the Trojans back to a national championship.
USC hadn't won a national title since 2004, and for years had been written off as 'just another team.'
Sure, most high school players would welcome a scholarship offer from USC — but the true elites kept choosing other schools, every single time.
Proof that USC was no longer the first option.
It was a wound to the program's pride.
And so USC had asked Clay Helton, who'd proven himself as the interim, to rebuild the team.
“Ask people what position a quarterback needs most, and what do they say?”
“Wide receiver, obviously.”
“Correct. But what do professionals like us say?”
“Easy. The O-line.”
Clay Helton was a man who believed that a sturdy offensive line was, above everything else, what a quarterback needed to reach his full potential.
No matter how brilliant your running backs or receivers, if the pocket isn't protected, forget the pass — the quarterback gets sacked on every dropback.
And as if to prove the point,
USC had poured this year's recruiting into the offensive line.
Specifically, the underrated ones.
The genuine gems.
Austin Jackson was the only nationally famous name among them, but this year's O-line freshmen were exceptional.
Players like Alijah Vera-Tucker, Brett Neilon, and Andrew Voorhees were never first-priority names — but in the end, any one of them would have claimed a starting job at any D1 program in the country.
While other universities were dazzled chasing 5-Star recruits, Clay Helton had moved fast and quietly collected the real O-line treasures.
These freshmen would be juniors in the season Moi enrolled — and unlike Nick Saban, Helton intended to hand him the starting quarterback job immediately. Which meant he'd judged 2020 as the year his team would be complete.
An offensive line that would stand rock-solid behind a quarterback of staggering talent.
The pocket would become a fortress.
Having worn a faintly contented smile at the thought, Clay Helton turned back to the coaches across the desk and went on.
“That kid is remarkably shrewd.”
“He's already turned down thirty schools, hasn't he?”
“Thirty-seven. Can you believe it?”
“Whew—”
“A kid who just started his sophomore year of high school has declined thirty-seven D1 scholarship offers. He is extremely careful and extremely clever. His eyes are already locked on the NFL. I can't say for certain, but for Moi, NCAA D1 is nothing more than a layover. So in my judgment, there were only two ways to recruit him.”
Enrollment with a guaranteed starting job.
Or a custom-built team.
If those two conditions were met, landing the most heralded talent ever evaluated could become reality.
Of course, some would gawk at what he was doing and say:
Why upend an entire recruiting plan for a fifteen-year-old whose future is anything but guaranteed?
Betting a university's fate on it is madness.
But.
That's exactly what High-Risk, High-Return means.
To become the very best in the NCAA D1 football league — a battlefield more treacherous and tangled than any jungle — there are times you have to gamble with your own job and your university's future on the line.
And right now, in the game others would call insane,
two schools were running furthest out in front.
Their target was one man and one man only.
Dwayne Moi Stone.
00 00 00 00 – 00 Waianae
10 14 13 07 – 44 Kahuku
21 14 03 14 – 52 Kahuku
03 00 03 00 – 06 Moanalua
00 03 03 00 – 06 Aiea
28 10 21 12 – 71 Kahuku
#. September 4, 2017
#-1. Oahu, Hawaii, USA
#-2. Honolulu, Kahuku CDP
#-3. Kahuku High School
We were doing better than I'd expected.
No.
Precisely as well as I'd expected.
Our timing and chemistry were clicking better with every game, and the team's mood was at its peak.
Most encouraging of all: through every game we'd played so far, the number of touchdowns we'd allowed was zero.
Granted, it had made the defensive guys a little cocky.
But I was willing to chalk that up to charm.
They were doing their jobs, after all.
And just like that, it was September.
At last.
That time had arrived.
“Goddammit. Of all places, it had to be Utah.”
“Is that any way for a Hawaii boy to talk?”
“Damn, bro. This happens once a year??”
“Well, what can you do. Go blame the NFHS.”
“Unbelievable! Last year was so good, too….”
The reason Marcus was moping like this was simple.
Our school trip destination this year was Utah.
Salt Lake City, no less.
If there was one thing largely unchanged from my past life, it was each city's character and personality — and even here, Utah ranked among the five most boring places in America.
So the other guys were complaining plenty, too.
Worse, last year it was Las Vegas, wasn't it?
From the city of sin and revelry,
suddenly shipped off to the city of monks.
“Goddammit. Guess I'll just focus on practice.”
“Coach would love hearing you say that.”
“No, seriously. History of the Mormons?! Are you kidding me? We get that lecture all day long here.”
I tried to calm Marcus down.
Knowing full well it wouldn't work.
“Do I look calm to you?”
“Or what? You gonna set fire to the NFHS building?”
“Honestly considering it. You in?”
“You're hilarious. I don't feel like spending the rest of my life in prison.”
“Hahahaha. God-DAMN. Still, I feel a little better now.”
By now they'd probably pieced it together, but —
our mainland game this year was being held in Utah.
The opponent was Bingham High School,
a traditional football powerhouse in that state.
They sent players to NCAA D1 programs every year.
I heard four more of them committed to D1 this season alone.
That's elite by any regional standard.
They were also famous every year for their defense,
which made this the perfect chance to test just how far our offense could go.
More than anything, I wanted to measure where my own ability stood.
That's hard to know in Hawaii.
Our team had become so overwhelmingly strong that every game was a cakewalk — and honestly, the edge, the tension, had dulled a little because of it.
So for the time remaining,
I had to lead this offense properly.
Get us into peak mental condition.
“Hey there! All of you holding court in here?”
“Seats open?”
Spotting my teammates at a cafeteria table at lunchtime, I slid naturally into the spot beside them.
Most of the guys here were seniors, so the conversation had drifted naturally toward college — and Kana'i, mid-chat with Zion, turned to me and asked:
“Forty-one, was it?”
“Forty-two.”
“What? It went up again already?”
“Yup. Yesterday afternoon.”
“Geez. Being Mr. Popular really is something else.”
“They're just poking around, that's all.”
“Still.”
Yesterday was Sunday. That afternoon,
the phone rang at home.
The caller was Mom.
And Mom asked me one simple question.
“You're not actually thinking about Syracuse, are you?”
“I don't want anywhere near New York.”
The moment my answer ended, Mom hung up.
And I went about my day like nothing happened.
Syracuse University, a member of the ACC in NCAA D1, had extended an offer — but they'd never been on my list to begin with.
And so the Syracuse Orange became,
the forty-second school I'd turned down.
“Not many left now, huh?”
“There's still two-thirds to go, actually.”
“Damn—! That line just now was ice cold.”
“Still two-thirds of the country left to reject me, though.”
“Fuck off, Zion. When did I ever say that?”
“Hahahaha.”
I chucked a crumpled napkin at Zion for his mocking imitation, then turned to Kana'i and asked where he was leaning.
Every year, the most-watched recruits in the nation commit through the so-called Selection Day, choosing their schools sometime between January and February — a privilege reserved for once-in-a-few-years talents.
Everyone else usually picks their university between November and December, then coasts through spring semester doing next to nothing.
Kana'i was a pretty heavily recruited player too,
so his school would probably be decided by around December.
He must have gotten plenty of calls already.
Fourteen to seventeen, I'd guess?
4-Stars usually land inside twenty.
So I fished a little,
and asked what kind of school he wanted.
“A coach I can learn defense from. A lot to learn.”
“Ohio State? Iowa?”
“Way too cold there. Somewhere warm, ideally.”
“Then isn't it Cal or Florida?”
“Well… for now, yeah, something like that.”
Kana'i wore an enigmatic smile.
Sounded like his mind was more or less made up.
Either way, he was a 4-Star.
Wherever he went, he'd get his shot at the starting job.
And that was what mattered most.
Zion was a tier below, a 3-Star.
The competition could get a little tight for him.
And yet the guy looked completely unbothered?
“Didn't the Huskies make you an offer?”
“Yeah. Back in February.”
“And you turned them down?”
“Come on— I just said I'd think about it.”
Zion was more forthcoming about it.
Washington.
Hawaii.
Oregon State.
Nevada.
Vanderbilt.
Cal.
So far, a total of six D1 programs had offered him a scholarship at linebacker.
“Whoa— that's legit.”
“Well, anywhere but Hawaii. I'm leaving the islands either way.”
“Fair enough. I love it here too, but….”
“Not for college, though. Right?”
Hawaii is a truly wonderful place.
But if I stayed here all the way through college, I think I'd be sad.
It's like — I want to test myself somewhere bigger.
Kana'i mentioned he had a fifth-period class and stood up first, while Zion, who had no class, stayed behind in the cafeteria and kept chattering with us.
The topic never left recruiting.
It was always like this around the seniors.
“Hey, Moi. Don't you get those kinds of offers?”
“Those kinds? Like what?”
“…You know exactly what.”
Ah—
That.
Money, he meant.
Of course.
Obviously I get them.
Among the forty-two schools I'd rejected, there were places promising salaries in the neighborhood of eight million dollars.
Can you believe it?
Eight million dollars a year — to a high school kid.
Needless to say, it was illegal.
And every year, it happened anyway.
The 'amateurism' the NCAA preached so loudly somehow never applied to the players raking in money for the schools.
And I hated it.
Because it meant selling out your teammates to fatten your own pockets.
I don't know about everything else, but that — that was genuinely wrong.
“Money's not on my mind right now.”
“For real?”
“Yeah. I'll make plenty once I get to the NFL.”
“And if you never make it that far?”
“Hey. It's me. Dream big, man.”
Knowing me, probably around October of next year
my shortlist would be settled.
And by then, without me lifting a finger, national broadcasters like ESPN and CBS would come flocking, asking to televise my commitment.
And I guarantee you,
when that day comes —
“I'm laying twenty hats out on that table.”
“DAMN—! That would be absolutely legendary!”
“Right?”
“Yes! I am not missing that.”
Laying hats on the table.
That's what it means: every school on the table is still a candidate.
High school players with the privilege of announcing their college choice on national television place the caps of every team that offered them onto the table, then pick one and put it on.
Every year, a dozen or more programs end up laughing or crying over that single moment — and I want to watch it from the closest possible seat.
And then, I think I'll send them all a certain look.
One that says:
You should've tried a little harder, hm?
“FUCK! That's way too brutal—! You're insane!”
“That's your big bro, Dwayne Moi Stone, for you.”
“God—! Damn!!”
Friends with great reactions really do make life more fun.
Thanks to Zion and Marcus,
my shoulders were riding high.
But.
This wouldn't do.
If, after all this swagger, I came up empty against Bingham High on the ninth, I'd be nothing more than the naked emperor.
And that could never be allowed.
Obviously.
Of course not.
“Anyway — listen up. Those Bingham boys. Let's put them down for good.”
“Obviously. Bury every last one of them.”
“Now that's what I'm talking about!”
Last year, we'd lost to our mainland opponent.
This year, absolutely.
I was not about to let that happen again.