Editors Note: This is part 2 of the Story. If you Missed Part 1, click here.
When we left off, Rajric Coleman had just finished two years in Glendale Community College and with his academic problems now behind him he was entertaining offers from colleges to finish up his college career. Four or five 1AA colleges initially offered him a chance to play ball with them. “At first I didn’t want to go out of state and so I was hoping Arizona came back into the picture. They said they would after my two years in junior college but it wasn’t to be, and I realized I had to take the best offer on the table.”
For a while it looked as though that best offer would be from 1-AA school Eastern Washington but then Utah State came in. “Utah State safeties coach Bill Busch recruited me. He had actually coached my high school and junior college coach Jason Jewell so I already knew a lot about him. The fact that he was going to be my position coach made me feel really comfortable, so much so I committed on my only visit.”
The step from high school standard to junior college had been negligible; the same cannot be said for the step up to Div 1 football. The grueling schedule was not anything like Coleman was used to. It was the norm now to be putting in about 40 hours of football in one form or another a week. It became a monotonous ritual of wake up, go to meetings, then class, then meetings again, then to the film rooms alone, practice, study the play book and then bed.
The hard work and constant effort paid off in terms of getting used to the step up in quality of the football played. “I think I fitted in at that level in the 2nd month of summer training. At first I had no clue what I had gotten myself into, it was training like I had never done before. I thought I was in shape in JC but it was nothing compared to what I needed to be in for major D-1 football. Once I was comfortable training and learning the plays, games weren’t an issue. Once I stepped on the field it was easy.”
In his junior year, Rajric started all 12 games for the Aggies. He ranked second amongst defensive backs and third overall on the team in terms of tackles with 74 and added 2 interceptions and five pass break-ups. He also posted one fumble recovery and two QB hurries. He made a career-high 13 tackles at BYU and added six or more stops in five other games including nine against San Jose State and eight against both New Mexico State and Fresno State.
With that sort of season you would think the NFL would be only a similar performance away. However things weren’t meant to be that easy for Rajric. “In my senior year in college I was struck with the injury bug and I think it really hurt my chances of getting drafted. I wasn’t the player I was expected to be by scouts.” In all Coleman had his right shoulder rotator cuff and labrum fixed after his junior year, the following camp he tore a tendon in his knee, suffered a grade three ankle sprain and finally a concussion in practice. “I wish I could have red shirted after the ankle injury but it wasn’t bad enough that I would have been granted a 5th year.”
In all his senior year in college was an extremely disappointing one on the field but off the field things were changing, Rajric’s focus switched. Now his degree became his priority as he thought about life after football. Football wise it was a frustrating year because he hadn’t met the goals he set for himself, but the completion of his degree course made up for any lasting disappointment.
The NFL combine was also something that Coleman knew he would miss out on due to his senior season, so all his preparation went into his senior day. “I looked at it as an extra week to prepare for my combine at school. I suffered a little hamstring strain a week before that I didn’t tell anyone about. It showed when I ran my 40 but other than that I was happy about the day”.
The other benefit of the pro day is speaking to the teams who were there to watch the athletes. Seattle seemed very interested in him and based on their conversations Coleman felt very confident of being drafted by them. They even took the opportunity of inviting him to Seattle for a pre-draft visit. Other visits with the Dolphins and the Cardinals fell through but on the whole things were looking up. There was definite interest out there. People knew Rajric Coleman.
He was expecting to go in the latter rounds and instead of waiting around watching the proceedings with family and friends crowded around a television set, Coleman decided to play video games in his apartment with his roommates whilst waiting for a call. At about five the calls started coming. Promises of selection if he dropped to certain teams and then the bitter disappointment of hearing someone else’s name called out when it came time for that team to pick. The fifth round became the sixth which soon became the seventh and the subject of the calls changed from draft selection to promises of UDFA contracts. Arizona promised, the Saints showed interest, then when a deal was being worked out someone else in the organization signed a different safety and it was back to square one. Then nothing until about 10pm. “My agent called me and said ‘Buffalo just signed you.’ I was like ‘umm…. who is Buffalo?’”
Please click here for Part Three
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