He was 17 years old when he first walked onto the field last summer. He didn’t know what a first down was or getting tackled for a loss.
Yet now, Tobi Haastrup has become a new superstar in a state known for great football.
But wait, there’s more. The Houston-based Haastrup has also become one of the most talked-about potential recruits in college football.
Grace Raynor, who profiled Haastrup for The Athletic where she covers recruiting in college football, joined the Standard to talk about the breakout star. Listen to the interview above or read the transcript below.
This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:
Texas Standard: I’m being a little facetious here, but how do you live in Texas and not know what a first down is?
Grace Raynor: That part, I mean, if you want to talk about a kid who truly knew nothing about football, that’s Tobi Haastrup for you. And he’s the first to admit that.
But yeah, he grew up in England, didn’t follow American football, moved here in 2016, moved to Texas in 2019. I don’t know if he’s seen a football game at all in the last couple of years being in Texas.
But yeah, pretty surreal that the top recruit didn’t know what that was.
That is wild. What got him interested in playing football?
So he was a track guy and his assistant coach saw him run a 10.7 second 100-meter dash at almost 240 pounds. Track coach was also the defensive line coach on the football team, so urged him to come out. Told him “worst case scenario, you leave high school with no regrets. You try something new.”
And here he is two weeks out from the early signing period, basically trying to figure out, all right, where is he going to go?
» GET MORE NEWS FROM AROUND THE STATE: Sign up for Texas Standard’s weekly newsletters
That is incredible. I understand the coach kind of bonded with Haastrup over their shared routes or something, is that right?
The head coach in Mayde Creek in Houston, yep. He and the head coach both had Nigerian roots and then the assistant coach, the defensive line coach, who was also his track coach, just bonded with him over his love for track, his love for running. Figured he would try to teach him how to play football in track terms as much as possible.
Coaches promised him that, you know, if he came out and brought his athleticism, they’d take care of the rest.
So how has his play been this season? I mean, football can be a pretty complicated game. Any hiccups along the way?
For sure. He started the season and the defensive line coach was joking that the head coach would get on him during games about “why does he keep jumping offsides? Please control him.” And he just didn’t know any better.
You know, he had never heard of offsides and he was so focused on his pass rush technique that he didn’t remember to line up correctly. So there were definitely some hiccups early, but I think midway through the season he started to get a little bit more comfortable, got into some film study.
He’s still very raw and whoever gets him is going to have a lot of room to mold him. But yes, for sure, this is a kid who who had to start from scratch, including “alright, this is where and how you line up.”
This is saying something, though. He’s clearly a raw talent because he’s still in many ways learning the nuances of the game. But he’s caught the attention of the scouts. Tell us about the hard offers. How many has he received so far, to your knowledge?
So he had a football offer at the D2 level, before he even played, just based on his speed. So that was in July.
Then he started playing in August and he had five sacks in his first game. And within that following week, I believe he picked up 16 Division One offers. He’s now up to 23. Ole Miss was the first big power school to offer him and and I think the dominoes kind of fell from there.
But yeah, they put the film out on social media and the way scouting departments work now on college football, you’ve got eyeballs on tape at all times. And so basically as soon as that went out, the power fours were more ready to roll.
I know a few Texas teams have been hoping to snag him, too.
Yep. He took an official visit to Texas Tech. I think A&M offered him. I don’t think he visited them. His sister does go to A&M, but he did take an offer to Texas Tech.
He’s also been a little bit everywhere. He goes to Michigan this week. He’ll go to Oregon next week. I asked him if he had kind of a top five or a top list and he said he didn’t, just because he’s… you know, most kids by now have seen schools maybe 20 or 30 times. And he’s going on his first visits for the first time ever.
So I think he’s still sifting through his options, trying to figure out, “all right, who do I vibe with and what am I looking for?” And, you know, figure out from there.
» TEXAS STANDARD SPORTS: From gridiron to gold medals, check out more of our sports coverage
I wonder how that affects the dynamics on this team because you have a superstar who hasn’t played before and now he’s getting all this attention. Did you get a chance to talk to any of his teammates about what life is like with this guy on their team?
I didn’t talk to any of his teammates, but one of the things that I thought was really interesting was this head coach was saying that because of Tobi, they now have a segment in practice regularly where they strip it way back to the basics and they’re going over things that some of these guys might have learned in peewee football.
But he says that in turn, it’s made the rest of his team better because they’re also getting back to a lot of the basics and they’re relearning some of what seems so simple. And it’s made them, I think, a little bit more disciplined and just allowed them to look at football in a different way, which I thought was kind of cool.
Have they had a winning schedule so far, or how’s it been looking?
They went 5-5. So they had a little bit of a tough year. He finished with 20 tackles for loss, eight sacks playing at the 6A level.
Their head coach came over from Duncanville, so I suspect that they’ll be up and rolling soon once they start to build back up. But but yeah, he had an excellent year.
You think about how new he is to this sport and now he has all these offers on the table. Does he understand the implications of the kind of decision he has to make here?
I think he knows that it’s going to be one of the most important decisions he makes in his life. He has talked about that.
But it was funny because, you know, we were chatting about how he had to learn what the conferences were and the Big Ten and the SEC and just the kind of the power dynamic in college football right now. And so I think he understands the magnitude of it for sure, but needed a little bit of help with the nuances and the nitty gritty of “all right, here are the programs, here are the different coaches. Here’s what other teams are known for” type thing.
So he’s getting close. And I think he said he’ll make his decision on Dec. 2. But certainly he knows how big this is for him.
Some people seem to be born sort of gifted to play in a sport and they sort of rise to this level where they’re showing why they can be counted as among the best. And here you have a guy born in the UK and yet perhaps born to be an American football player, too.
Or is this just a naturally talented athlete no matter what the sport? What’s your take on that?
I think it’s the latter. I mean, he didn’t really follow American football and then he came over here and was more focused on track. And I think you see those numbers and you see his size and his speed.
You know, one of the things that I talked to these coaches about, and they told him this when they were trying to convince him to come out for the team, is that if you have speed, you can really do anything. It’s the one thing you need in all of the major sports. So from there, they kind of fine tuned it and and taught him everything else.
But he had the foundation. I think he was just so athletic that he was going to be a natural, especially once he started to learn the nuances a little bit more.
Well, you know, thinking about the decision that he has to make in a couple of weeks, you think about other sports like the NBA and how teams like the Spurs with international players went a long way toward helping basketball become more popular in other parts of the world.
I wonder, do you think we’ll see him in the NFL someday and maybe that could get the Brits interested in American-style football after years and years of trying to break through?
His high school coach thinks so. And this is a guy who’s coached many five-stars. He was talking about how he’s pure speed. His first-step explosiveness is up there with some of the five-stars that he has coached.
So I think a lot of it’s going to depend on where he goes. I think getting a coach that’s a really good teacher is going to be really critical for him. But his high school coach thinks that once you add the nutrition, the weight training, the college scheme, all that good stuff, he thinks that he’s a Sunday guy. So I’m really, really fascinated to see how this plays out.
