Ford soldiers on through football
UT captain excels at defensive tackle after once looking at joining Marines
AUSTIN — Last Friday, as the Hilton Head High School football team broke into its pregame stretch routine, coach B.J. Payne stole away to retrieve his cellphone.
He wanted simply to make sure the device’s time was aligned with the field’s scoreboard. Payne had no idea a text message from Texas coach Tom Herman awaited him or that its contents would elicit the most joyous tears moments before the Seahawks’ season began in South Carolina.
Hilton Head alumnus Poona Ford — too short, too quiet, Kaylon “Poona” Ford — had been voted one of UT’s four captains
“It was incredible,” Payne said. “I literally broke down and cried on the field. I took it around and gave it to every single one of our coaches to read. A couple of them had the exact same reaction and if not that, then just smiling with pride.” Alternate course
There’s another universe where Herman never composed that text, a dimension where Ford capitulated to critiques and charted a new course. In that realm, Ford is a member of the Marines rather than the Longhorns’ starting nose tackle. Instead of rushing passers, he’s rushing beaches.
That’s nearly the life Ford chose.
His sophomore season at Hilton Head ended with the firing of longtime coach Tim Singleton. Then an inside linebacker, Ford seriously questioned his future in the game.
He consulted several relatives with military backgrounds about what to do with adulthood somewhat surreptitiously approaching.
“At that point, I really kind of lost hope of going to the next level,” Ford said. “I was really just like, ‘OK, what I’m going to do is get ready to go into the Army or something.’”
Parris Island’s Marine base was almost around the corner from Ford’s home. It seemed like a fine fit for an athlete adrift.
Then the future Marine met Payne and everything changed.
“My first meeting with him,” Payne recounted, “and it wasn’t boisterous or egotistical at all, he said, ‘Coach, nice to meet you. My name’s Poona Ford. I’m your Mike linebacker.’
“I looked at him, smiled and said, ‘You’re not my Mike linebacker, you’re my three-technique and if you trust me, I promise you I’ll make you an All-American.’”
Ford accepted the coach’s edict with a Marinelike, “Yes, sir.”
“He would do absolutely freakish things,” Payne said. “We couldn’t let him go one-on-one in high school. Our ones couldn’t block him, let alone if we tried to put a scout team in front of him.”
Ford’s first scholarship offer arrived courtesy of Toledo. One day coach Matt Campbell, now at Iowa State, journeyed to Hilton Head to check in on the defensive tackle’s progress.
“Matt came in and watched him in the weight room and turns, looks at me and pulls out his phone to start texting people,” Payne said. “I’m like, ‘Are you texting your D-line coach?’
“He said, ‘Hell no. We’ll never touch this kid. I’m texting my buddy at LSU. I’m texting my buddy here and here because we’re never going to have a chance at that guy.’” Unnecessary red mark
Despite Ford’s utter dominance, his 5-11 height measurement was still underlined, circled and adorned with a skull and crossbones on nearly every scouting report. Fortunately, Ford possessed a ridiculous 80-inch wingspan and a desire to upend antiquated notions of what a traditional defensive lineman should look like.
“I’ve pretty much been hearing that my whole high school career,” Ford said of the knocks on his build. “I just was able to look past it.” Some weren’t. Alabama was among the schools intrigued by Ford. It sent defensive line coach Chris Rumph to personally observe this uniquely built tackle.
Rumph said he “loved everything about” Ford — except his height.
“So Alabama came in and said we love absolutely everything about him, but we can find a guy that does the same thing as him that’s 6-4,” Payne said. “And I literally laughed at him and said, ‘No, you can’t.’ And (Rumph) left and they didn’t offer him.”
Before Ford’s freshman season with Texas, Rumph joined Charlie Strong’s staff in Austin. For Payne, this was simply an opportunity he couldn’t pass over.
So Ford’s high school coach, knowing the answer that awaited, sent UT’s new defensive line coach a playful text: “Do you have somebody at Texas who’s 6-4 who can do what he does?” “No, I don’t.” Rumph and Strong are gone now, but Ford remains. The quiet, vertically challenged tackle who nearly enlisted has become a Longhorns captain and a preseason All-Big 12 selection.
“When you look back at it, the kid couldn’t have gone wrong with either choice” Payne said. “Either way he’s a guy you want playing for you or with you, or he’s the guy that you want defending our country.”