Washington’s Vea will devour steaks and QBs
Before he began swallowing up blocks and devouring ball carries at the University of Washington, Vita Vea took on a steak.
And won.
On his recruiting visit to Seattle, the jumbo-size nose guard of Tongan ancestry was taken to dinner at SkyCity, the restaurant at the top of the Space Needle. And he inhaled what then-Huskies defensive line coach Jeff Choate terms “the biggest steak I’ve seen in my life.”
“I’m saying it was a 42-ounce porterhouse, or something like that,” said Choate, now the head coach at Montana State. “Whatever it was, it was massive. It was the size of my head. And I think he wanted another one when he was done.”
Vea, a Milpitas native who was last season’s Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year, is expected to be a top-15 pick in the NFL draft Thursday after flashing his appetite for destruction at Washington.
At 6-foot-4 and 347 pounds, Vea didn’t produce eye-popping statistics in his final college season (44 tackles, 3.5 sacks). However, opponents routinely devoted two blockers to stop him, a strategy that allowed Vea’s teammates to roam free on a defense that ranked eighth in the nation and limited nine opponents to fewer than 17 points.
Not surprisingly, Vea is strong — his 41 bench-press reps of 225 pounds were second most at the combine. He’s an elite prospect because his power is part of a
package that includes skills usually associated with far smaller men.
Said Choate: “You just don’t usually see that combination of mass and athleticism in a normal, mortal human being.”
At Milpitas High, Vea, who was 6-3 and 260 pounds as a freshman, also spent time at running back and wildcat quarterback. At Washington, he lined up at every position on the line, making him the rare 350pound defensive end. At the combine, Vea, the heaviest player at the event, ran the 40-yard dash in 5.1 seconds, which nearly matched the time of a 224-pound quarterback, Western Kentucky’s Mike White.
NFL Network analyst Mike Mayock has termed Vea a “dancing bear” and a “freak.” And his colleagues, Daniel Jeremiah and Bucky Brooks, both former NFL scouts, each recalled the same play when describing Vea’s rare size-strength-speed combination: In last season’s Fiesta Bowl against Penn State, Vea made a tackle ... on punt coverage.
Said Jeremiah: That “is not something normal for a guy who was at that time over 350 pounds. So that just showed you how rare his athletic ability was.”
Brooks didn’t stop with Vea’s last college game. He also referenced Vea’s days in high school, when he rushed for 578 yards and 11 touchdowns as a senior.
On his man-against-boys prep highlight video, Vea, wearing jersey No. 88, uses impressive jump cuts and stiff-arms to juke defenders who look Lilliputian by comparison.
“Whenever you can find something in that background that makes them a little unique,” Brooks said, “to have someone that size being able to tote the rock? You just don’t see that kind of athleticism for a big man.”
The 49ers, who have used their first pick on a Pac-12 defensive lineman the past three years, don’t figure to be in the market for Vea with the No. 9 pick. But plenty of pre-draft chatter has linked Vea to the Raiders, who have the No. 10 pick and interior defensive-line needs.
If drafted by Oakland, Vea’s NFL career would begin about 30 miles from where his varsity career began as a 15-year-old freshman. In his first season, Vea played tight end, outside linebacker and, finally, had his wish granted to play football’s marquee position.
“He bugged me the whole year, so the last regular-season game, I put him in at wildcat quarterback,” Milpitas head coach Kelly King said. “And then I called his number and ran him down the field until he was out of gas.”
King also called for Vea to throw a pass. Once.
At the combine, Veta laughed about his attempt, which ensured he wouldn’t get a second chance.
“I was focusing too much on throwing the perfect pass (and) when my time came to throw that ball to the receiver down the field, I chucked that ball like 30 feet up in the air and it was gone,” Vea said. “And there were my quarterback dreams — up in the air. Lost with the wind.”
That Vea’s only pass turned into a colossal gaffe is fitting because seemingly everything about him is huge, including his full name: Tevita Tuli’aki’ono Tuipulotu Mosese Va’Hae Fehoko Faletau Vea.
Yes, that’s a mouthful, as was that steak he had on his recruiting trip.
Speaking of which, Choate shared another detail about that dinner: “We got him dessert.”