David Ojabo: The NFL Draft hopeful born in Nigeria, made in Scotland 

The idea of facing the unknown is not new to David Ojabo.

As a seven-year-old he moved from his native Nigeria to Scotland; ten years later he moved thousands of miles once more, heading to the US with dreams of becoming a basketball player.

So in many ways trying a new sport was far from the biggest leap he has ever taken, but it is the one that has taken him further than he might have dared imagine, with the destination heaving into view this weekend — the NFL.

The move to Aberdeen came about because of his father Victor’s work in the oil industry, a transition that Ojabo fully embraced. “I love it, man. Scotland is home,” he said last year.

While he played football (soccer) his size drew him naturally towards American sports, and it was hoop dreams that took him to Blair Academy in New Jersey when, aged 15, he told his parents that he wanted to move because he didn’t feel he was being pushed by his peers. “He comes home, and he wants to move to the United States,” his mother, Ngor, said. “He was the top player in Scotland, but David is someone who knows what he wants, and he kept pressing.”

He got his way, and it was his incessant desire to compete and improve himself that prompted a fateful first interaction with Jim Saylor, Blair’s football coach.

Ojabo had seen that Saylor had guided Odafe Oweh — then known as Jayson — through the football programme to be offered a number of college scholarships (he was drafted in the first round last year by the Baltimore Ravens and was a standout player).

Saylor recalls: “The basketball court was right next to my football office. And he comes walking into my office one day and says, ‘Hey, I’m stronger, faster and tougher than Jayson, do you mind if I try football?’”

There was one slight problem — that pesky unknown. “He didn’t know what a three-point stance was,” Saylor says. “He didn’t know what the hash marks were on the field. He had to learn everything. It was basically like having a five or six-year-old learning the game from scratch — but as a kid that had never even watched football, so I would say it was an even larger learning curve.”

Fortunately, Ojabo was all-in on his new adventure and very quickly impressed the coaches — “We’ve seen a progression from day one to day two. Each day, he got better and better,” Saylor says — but it wasn’t a wholly smooth transition. “One time he picked up a fumble in a game and we had to yell which way to run.” But of course Ojabo scored a touchdown on the play.

If that helped allay fears of coaches that he wasn’t ready for the sport, there was someone else who needed reassurance of Ojabo’s place on the gridiron — his mother. “They got to see one game at Blair and they were so nervous,” Saylor says. “When he decided to play she gave me a call, ‘He’s not gonna get hurt, is he?’ I said, ‘Well, I don’t think he’s gonna get hurt — I think he may hurt other people.’ ”

But he was doing more than just that and it wasn’t long before he was fulfilling the potential his athleticism hinted at. “Between his first and second year our defensive line coach, Mike Coyle, he would come in in the offseason, and he would meet with David two or three days a week to help him get better,” Saylor adds. “The progression from first year to the second year was dramatic. I mean, he’s still getting better. Now you can see, he still has a lot of stuff to work on. But he’s one of those young men that’s eager to learn and does the right things.”

The progress was not lost on college scouts and he had about 35 offers, including from Notre Dame, Clemson and Ohio State, but Ojabo opted for Michigan, whose NFL alumni include Tom Brady. But before he even arrived on campus there was a hiccup: Greg Mattison, the defensive line coach who recruited him and with whom he had built up a rapport, left to go to Ohio State. It is not an uncommon scenario, but one that can be approached in two ways — seek a transfer, or take another step into the unknown and try to win over the new coach.

It was no surprise to Saylor which path his former charge chose. “Most kids would probably look to transfer to another school, but he was determined,” Saylor says. “He said, ‘You know what, I made a commitment to the University of Michigan. I didn’t make a commitment to coach Madison and I’m gonna stick through this and I’m here to get my degree.’ A lot of young men try to take an easier path; when things don’t go quite how they’re supposed to go they look in another direction, but David always kept taking steps forward instead of taking steps backwards or sideways.”

There was further disruption when he went back to Scotland to see his parents in spring 2020 — but then had to stay there because of the Covid-enforced US travel ban, and a three-week holiday became a three-month exile from his team-mates as they prepared for the new season. He returned to play one game in his sophomore season as he got to grips with the levels required of him in the college game, but then really broke out in his junior year, registering 11 sacks and 24 solo tackles in 13 games. That put the NFL on notice, not least when he decided to forgo his senior year to try to make the step up now.

And so to the 2022 Draft, but this weekend there is one more unknown confronting the 21-year-old Ojabo — unfortunately not one that he can control. He goes into the weekend not knowing how NFL front offices will respond to the serious achilles injury that he suffered on his pro day.

He had put up a strong showing at the Combine, impressing with the speed and strength in his 6ft 5in, near-18st frame, and now was the chance for scouts to assess him a final time before the Draft and get to know the man behind the player. Then, as Ojabo was running a simple drill, his achilles tendon went, and so too did his hopes of backing a top-ten draft pick. But how far he falls remains to be seen.

Saylor is in no doubt that he will come back the same player he was before — “He’s gonna conquer that, and he’s gonna move to the next step” — but knows that it requires teams to look past the injury to the player that they were talking up only two months ago. “I’m hoping that someone in the NFL says, ‘Hey, you know what, this kid was a top-15 pick. And we’re still gonna take them because we love the person he is. And we love this type of player.’ It’s also about the locker room and how people fit into your community and stuff like that. And I think part of David’s Draft stock is the kind of person he is, he’s a good kid, he’s not going to get in trouble.”

Saylor credits Ojabo’s parents for his work ethic and his ability to remain level-headed, which may be put to the test if he does fall through the rounds in the Draft. But even if he doesn’t get picked up till Friday or Saturday, Saylor doesn’t see it as a problem. “One of the things I stress to him is a lot of us played football for a lot of years growing up, and the NFL was our dream; you’re getting an opportunity that one in a million people get, you’re going to have an opportunity to play in the NFL, which is an honour in itself. So it really doesn’t matter where you get picked.

“He’s going to prove himself on the field over the next three, four years. And then in his second contract he’s going to make up the money he missed if he doesn’t go in the first round.”

And there are other ways that Ojabo can turn the setback into a positive, Saylor believes. “It gives him an opportunity to get into a team and learn some of the mental stuff of the game while he’s recovering. In some ways, it might take the pressure off that he’s not expected to go into the 2022 season and suddenly improve a franchise that’s been struggling or anything like that.”

Wherever he ends up getting picked it is fitting that Saylor, who was there at the beginning of Ojabo’s gridiron journey, will be there when the NFL comes calling, as he has been invited by his parents to Texas, where Ojabo’s host family live, to their Draft party.

It will be this weekend that Ojabo learns of the next destination in his globetrotting journey that has taken in three continents, three cultures. It is perhaps apt that it will be Las Vegas, the gambling capital of the world, where his name gets called because, as Saylor says: “He took a huge risk and look where it’s going to land him — possibly being drafted in the NFL in the first round.” (From The Times)