With almost no football experience, Avon's Enoch Atewogbola rises to Big Ten recruit

AVON — Rob Gibson had only been on the job for a few days at Avon in February 2023 when he got his first look at Enoch Atewogbola . Gibson, the school’s new football coach , saw him shooting free throws in the gym.

Gibson remembers asking Atewogbola his position in football. He politely responded he did not play football. Gibson rephrased the question.

“What do you want to play in football?” he asked.

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The rest is history, as they say, though that is not entirely true. The 6-4, 215-pound Atewogbola, with almost zero football experience, went out for the team last year as a junior. He played some at defensive end. Made 17 tackles. One sack.

A good start. But the player Atewogbola can be — will be — is so much more. The rest, in his case, is the future.

“He has no idea how good he is going to be,” Gibson said. “But the best thing about Enoch is no matter how good he gets, he is never going to feel like he’s satisfied. He’s never going to wake up and feel like he’s made it. He’s always going to question himself and ask, ‘Did I work hard enough?’ or ‘Did I push hard enough?’”

Atewogbola, almost entirely on the promise of what he can become and how far he has come already, was offered a scholarship by Marshall in January. Northern Illinois followed. Then Minnesota, Boston College and Western Michigan. On April 27, Atewogbola committed to Minnesota sight unseen (he will take his official visit to Minnesota the weekend of June 7-9).

In the span of 14 months, Atewogbola went from a 15-year-old with no intention of playing football to a Big Ten recruit. It is an unusual story, perhaps fitting for a young man who has no issues breaking the mold.

“I’m pretty weird, honestly,” Atewogbola said with a smile. “People call me odd sometimes. I take that as a compliment. My sense of humor is odd. Not everybody can be the same. I don’t try to be like everybody else. You can’t copy and paste. I want to be different.”

He is well on his way.

Finding football

Growing up in Nigeria, Atewogbola did not play football. Or basketball. Or any sport.

“I didn’t play sports at all,” he said. “I wanted to be a mechanical engineer.”

His parents, Michael and Temitayo, moved Enoch and his younger sister Racheal to the United States five years ago. They lived in St. Louis briefly before coming to Indianapolis, settling first in Speedway. Enoch’s eighth grade science teacher told him a friend who coached AAU basketball was looking for a big man to help fill out his team. “Give him my number,” Enoch said.

At the first practice, Enoch got knocked around. He missed layups. It was clear to him, and his coach, he was well behind the rest of the team.

“He told me I had to get stronger,” Atewogbola said. “Because that’s the quickest thing to get better at. He told me to do 50 pushups a day.”

Quickly, 50 pushups a day was too easy. He worked up to 100. Then 200. Then 700. On two successive days that summer he pumped out 1,000 and 1,001 pushups. Why?

“I’ve always prided myself in working,” he said. “It gives you an advantage and gives you confidence because you did the work. There’s nothing to be nervous about if you did the work. Basketball didn’t come naturally. I had to put in a lot of work. I was skinny, I had terrible footwork and I had a lot of things I had to get better on.”

As a freshman at Speedway, Atewogbola went out for the football team. The only reason: His best friend, Damola Ajani , also a Nigerian immigrant, was on the team.

“I only started playing football,” Atewogbola said, “because I wanted to be around him more.”

Ajani, a newcomer to football himself, eventually became a Division I prospect on the offensive line. He signed with Indiana and is part of the incoming freshman class. Atewogbola did not stick with it, however. His family bought a house in Avon and going into his sophomore year, he quit football to focus on making the basketball team.

“One of the first workouts we had we worked out and had open gym,” Avon basketball coach Drew Schauss said. “I got a call and then came back in the gym at about 7 p.m. and he was working on post moves. Those first couple weeks I could tell right away his work ethic wasn’t like most high school kids. He was always all about, ‘What can I do to get better?’”

Atewogbola, after meeting Gibson, decided to come out for football as a junior. “Best decision I made in my life,” he said. He did not have any expectations, guessing he would probably play on the junior varsity team due to his lack of experience.

“People told me I lifted like a football player, and I said I might as well try it again,” Atewogbola said. “I didn’t expect much because I quit sophomore year and forgot everything. Not even relearning, just learning. I had to get over a bunch of humps. But overall, as a first-year varsity guy I think I did OK.”

Gibson estimated Atewogbola was on the field “for about 40% of our (defensive snaps)” as a junior. “Not because he wasn’t good enough,” Gibson said. “He just didn’t know anything about football yet. He probably won’t come off the field for us next year.”

With that inexperience in mind, Gibson told college coaches to recruit Atewogbola for what he could be and not what he is currently. Schools like Boston College, Indiana, Michigan State and Minnesota were interested.

“Not as many schools are interested in developing high school talent because the transfer portal is instant gratification,” Gibson said. “The number of schools recruiting these types of kids are fewer and fewer.”

Fortunately for Atewogbola, he found a school that had a perfect template for him.

Picking Minnesota

Boye Mafe, the son of Nigerian immigrants, was born and raised in Minnesota. He developed into a star pass rusher as a 6-4, 265-pound defensive end for his home state Golden Gophers. As a senior in 2021, he was named second team All-Big Ten.

In the 2022 NFL draft, Mafe, a former three-star prospect, was selected by the Seattle Seahawks in the second round with the No. 40 overall pick. In 16 games last season, his second in the NFL, Mafe posted nine sacks and 52 total tackles.

“Minnesota recruited him, developed him, then he got drafted in the second round and led the Seahawks in sacks,” Gibson said. “There’s a reason Minnesota was so attractive to (Atewogbola) when they started recruiting him.”

Atewogbola called it a “no brainer.” He said he had no concerns about committing to Minnesota without having been there first.

“They have football, food and a weight room,” he said. “Before I even got the offer, I knew Minnesota had the coaches I wanted to play for. Even though I hadn’t been on campus yet, I knew they were coaches I wanted to spend four years playing for. They took a chance on me.”

Atewogbola, who turned 17 on Saturday, said the rest is up to him. There is no concern about his willingness to work. The days of doing 1,000 pushups ended when he found the weight room. But Gibson said there is no one who makes it matter more than Atewogbola.

“You can’t skip a set in the weight room and look yourself in the mirror and tell yourself you’re going to be an NFL superstar,” he said. “How can you take yourself seriously?”

Atewogbola said he used to walk around school with low self-esteem. “I felt like nobody knew me or respected me,” he said. But his coaches say that is not the Atewogbola they see now. Gibson said Avon principal Matt Shockley would list Atewogbola as one of his “top five favorites” among the more than 3,000 students in the high school.

“You aren’t supposed to have favorites,” Gibson said. “But he’s just a superb kid and tremendous teammate. He never talks about himself, never focuses on himself. He’s just an all-round All-American type of guy.”

Schauss said it might be a couple years into college before Atewogbola even starts to approach his potential in football. But he has no doubt he will get there.

“I know what it’s like to feel average,” Atewogbola said. “I’m going to put in the work to never feel that way again.”

Call Star reporter Kyle Neddenriep at (317) 444-6649 .

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: With almost no football experience, Avon's Enoch Atewogbola rises to Big Ten recruit