Yale’s Oluokun could go from dream season to draft

NEW HAVEN — This was 3:08 p.m. Saturday at the Yale Bowl, 45 minutes after the annual football spring scrimmage ended, in the middle of the ring ceremony. Coach Tony Reno stopped for a moment among the circle of his players to look them in the eye.

“You are an honor to coach,” Reno said. “You always will go down as one of the greatest teams to ever play at Yale.”

There are so many traditions at Yale, so many. One of them is to call each football team by year. No, not 2017 or 2018. By the year of the program’s existence. Last year was 145.

And 145 was something to behold. Team 145 captured Yale’s first outright Ivy League championship in 37 years.

“We were a gritty, driven team,” Foye Oluokun said. “We were kind of written off the beginning of the year, coming off the year before. We wanted to prove to ourselves that we were one of the best teams in the Ivy League.”

The Bulldogs were picked fourth in the Ivy League preseason poll.

“We started winning, our confidence grew and we rode it,” Oluokun said. “We were just so competitive, man; in the middle of the game, if it got tough, we just loved it. We loved pulling out wins.”

No win better, of course, than the 24-3 win over Harvard to secure the first outright title since 1980, a few weeks after Ronald Reagan was elected president.

And so there they were on this breezy April afternoon collecting their deserved booty. The rings are beautiful. Set among the jewels is a big blue Y surrounded by the words “Ivy League Champions.”

“To give the guys a piece of hard work and effort that they can wear put on their finger for the rest of their life, it’s special,” Reno said.

On one side of the ring, a replica of the Ivy League trophy is engraved. The real-life trophy sat on the table at the 50-yard-line next to the boxes of rings.

On the other side of the ring, the players’ names and 145 are engraved.

“I was here for 4 1⁄2 years, we went up and down,” Oluokun said. “To pull one out the last year and to see the whole Yale family come together today for an event like this, it’s a great feeling.”

“Every year is a new year, there is a separation of the two,” Reno said. “But the identity of a team also is formed from its past experiences. Team 146 will hopefully

draw from the experiences of Team 145.”

Ivy League football is good football. That much is sure. Yet sometimes it’s good to look beyond the Ivy, beyond the tradition to quantify it in more coarse football terms. Like with, as they say, draftable numbers.

Look at what Oluokun posted at his FCS pro day. As Brian McLaughlin of Hero Sports first pointed out, four of his performances would have been in the top 10 at the NFL combine among linebackers.

He was first among FCS linebackers in the 40-yard dash at 4.48 seconds and fourth in the vertical jump at 37 inches. He was fourth in the broad jump, while fellow Yale linebacker Matt Oplinger was third. Oluokun was first in the 20-yard shuttle and second in the three-cone drill. Only Clemson’s Dorian O’Daniel had a faster 20-yard shuttle time than Oluokon’s 4.12 seconds.

“Pretty good numbers,” Oluokun said. He smiled.

Former NFL quarterback Gus Frerotte coached Oluokun and Dallas Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott in high school at John Burroughs in suburban St. Louis. Frerotte recommended Loren Landow to Oluokun. The Broncos’ strength coach runs an impressive program in Colorado to prepare players for the NFL draft.

“I trained with 30 guys; it was a great atmosphere,” Oluokun said. “I didn’t do anything but train, eat and sleep.”

Oluokun was out there for nearly three months. He didn’t get to play in the Senior Bowl or the Shrine Game or participate in the NFL combine. Yet the by the time he was finished, the NFL didn’t look like such a long shot.

“We were doing a lot of tests throughout the time I was there,” Oluokun said. “So I knew I got my numbers down to where they needed to be. It was all about going out and performing.”

The Fordham FCS pro day in early March was held at Columbia because snow was in the forecast. Scouts from NFL teams

showed.

“I treated it like a game,” Oluokun said. “I got excited the night before. I did a lot of stretches in the hotel room. The scouts were there, so you’re kind of nervous. But I saw guys like the ones I was training with in Colorado. It calmed me. I’m thinking those guys already had their pro days and they did well. Trust your training. Go out and put on a show.”

The 6-foot-2, 230-pound Oluokun put on enough of a show for his name to start appearing among potential later-round draft picks. Enough of a show that his agent Evan Brennan tweeted, “My phone is gonna detonate!”

When it gets toward the end, some argue it’s better not to get drafted and make use of the flexibility to sign as a free agent.

“If I get drafted, I get drafted,” Oluokun said. “If I don’t, my agent and I are talking to a lot of teams to try to figure out the best place for me to go. All I’m focused on is trying to make the 53-man roster at the end of the summer.”

He had visits with the Chiefs, Cardinals and Colts

and local days with the Jets and Giants where he got a tour and went through some medical matters.

“From everything we’ve heard, we’re very hopeful he and Matt Oplinger will both get an opportunity to play at the next level,” Reno said. “Foye’s very versatile. The kid played corner, safety, outside linebacker, inside linebacker for us.

“His numbers speak for themselves. Both of those guys are great football players. Intangibly, they’re off the charts in their ability to be great leaders and handle any adversity. These are two guys any business or sports franchise would want.”

Oluokun said he’ll be in the football offices or at Reno’s house during the draft next weekend. He’s not sure. What is sure is that he finished his economics degree at Yale in December and at 3:24 p.m. on Saturday he stepped up and received his Ivy League championship ring. The degree and the ring are forever.