I was a very good athlete from a small town in Western NY. How small of a town? Small enough that I was the starting QB, Punter, Kicker and started at either Corner, or Safety depending on what my coach wanted me to do.

I sent my film into BYU but didn't get any love, just a recommendation to go to football camp the Summer of 2008 or 09. Can't remember which one but I remember Doman was running the QB portion of the camp and it was known that he already had is guy from my graduating class 2010, didn't realize it at the time but his guy was Jake Heaps. Heaps wasn't at that camp.

I stood out athletically from the other quarterbacks. 6'6 210, 4.7 in the 40, 11.4 100M. I was getting some love from some of the coaches for this and thought nothing of it. Until the last day of the camp someone pulled me aside and said I was going with the linemen for the day.

What happened next might have been a fluke, because I was so much faster than the other linemen... They lined me up as a left defensive end against a marshmallow, I had a very natural swim move to blow past him and get the sack. They lined me up with a few others, all progressively got someone bigger and meaner... same deal, I got the sack like no one was in front of me each time. Finally someone said, "let Ryker have a go". I hate to say that I blew past Ryker as easy as I blew past the first marshmallow.

At this point all the coaches were making all sorts of comments. "He'd be a quick 260". "Do you know anything other than that swim move?" "You're a QB?". One coach pulled me aside and told me he was from Snow college and that he would like me to attend, he could help me put on weight and transfer to BYU.

Eventually the coaches got me to move to the right DE spot for the QB sack drill. As soon as I did this, I felt Awkward. I knew that my swim move to the outside was not going to be as good swimming with my left hand. I don't know if it was the bad swim move, or the fact that I lined up against Bronson Kafusi, but it was the only time I was not able to sack the QB doing that drill. I do think that if we lined up on the left side, I could've got him with the same swim move that I'd been using.

After we were done for the morning, I was walking across the practice field headed to Glenwood apartments, when someone called my name. I look over my shoulder and see Bronco on a golf cart. He introduced himself and said that he heard I did well in the drills that day. I can't remember anything else, but he did not make any sort of offer.

A few weeks later a coach came out to my small town. Watched me throw some balls. And told me that BYU wanted to offer me PWO spot to play defensive end. But over the course of my senior season and my mission I had lost all contact with the coaching staff. The coach who I was texting was not at BYU anymore.

I ended up playing basketball for D3 college. But sometimes I wonder what could've been.

Anyway, Go Cougs!