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"It had nothing to do with football," Suamataia told Cougar Sports Insider. "I talked to all of the coaches, but it was nothing about football. It was just about everything else - happiness and life."
BYU has a lot of great football things happening inside their program right now. The Cougars are ranked #15 in this week's College Football Playoff poll. Earlier this year, BYU accepted an invitation to join the Big 12 Conference and will finally get a seat at the Power Five table. There are NFL scouts are every game and most practices, meticulously monitoring the wealth of NFL talent that is on BYU's roster. But those aren't the things that stood out for Suamataia in his decision to commit to BYU.
"I knew they were going to the Big 12 - and that's cool, but this is bigger than football, for me," he said.
Suamataia will team up with former Orem High School teammates Puka Nacua, Jakob Robinson and Hunter Hill when he arrives in Provo. Each of them initially signed with other schools out of high school. Now, they have all found their way back home and into the BYU football program. Nacua, like Suamataia, transferred to BYU in order to be closer to his family and to play within the family atmosphere that Sitake's program preaches every day.
"You can't simulate family," he said. "I do stuff for my family. I do stuff with my family, and my base is my family. The big factor for me to come back was just my family. Oregon is great for a lot of other kids - and it's a really great place - but for me, I needed to come home and play in front of my family."Statistics: Posted by Fido — Fri Nov 05, 2021 9:58 am
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