For SMU DB signee Isaiah Nwokobia, choices go far beyond football

DALLAS -- Wednesday was Dallas Skyline safety Isaiah Nwokobia's 18th birthday. A fitting birthday present to himself was his signature on a national letter of intent.

Just so happened, that birthday present was a gift that kept on giving. He watched his family celebrate. His friends celebrate. His teammates and coaches celebrate.

And he watched SMU celebrate. Because they know the kind of football player he can be, and the kind of student-athlete who can represent the university.

Nwokobia was one of SMU's 16 early signees Wednesday, and with a couple strokes of a pen, his life flash before his eyes -- in a good way.

"It feels great to be done with it all, and I'm proud of myself," Nwokobia said. "I've come a long way. Nobody saw me coming me this far, so it meant a lot. "I'm just glad the process is over with, and I'm locked in."

Nwokobia was one of the 2021 recruits who committed and then went into tunnel vision. After committing to the Mustangs on May 1, the 6-0, 190-pound, three-star safety made recruiting interviews and publicity secondary to honing his craft on the field. He respectfully responded to college coaches trying to lure him from SMU, but he stayed true to his original pledge.

He went to every Skyline football practice wanting to be better than he was the day before. Physically, he molded his body and is now an absolute specimen without pads on. He went into games, even as an athlete with 35 reported offers, as someone with a chip on his shoulder, someone who felt disrespected by his opponent because he wasn't good enough.

In Nwokobia's eyes, "good" was never good enough.

"I had to prove all the doubters wrong," he said. "I already feel like I've beaten the odds, but I really haven't done anything yet."

Nwokobia, in many ways, is cut from a different cloth. Off the football field, he is a respected student with a 3.7 grade-point average at Skyline. He's a proud resident of Pleasant Grove in Dallas, an area his primary recruiter, Ra'Shaad Samples, knows quite well. Samples was a former Skyline standout at wide receiver, and he has a "Born and Raised" billboard in the heart of the community for all to see.

Pride for his community fuels Nwokobia. Showing that he can make it out is a different motivation in itself. Nwokobia's the first to admit he could be a statistic of a rough neighborhood if football and a strong family backing wouldn't stand firm. He loves speaking of his mother, Linda Leach, keeping him focused and locked in on his goals.

Family comes first. And education and football run side by side as a very close second.

"I've got personal friends who were some of the best athletes I've ever seen," he said. "But they made some mistakes, and it hurt them. I saw that firsthand. "I know a lot of people around here that don't make it this far. There are people who have way more talent than I have, but they didn't make it because of their environment and the situation they come from. I'm just glad I have a great mom who kept my head on straight on straight."

Nwokobia now is preparing for graduation in the spring. He's an early signee, but Skyline doesn't allow student-athletes to graduate early, so he'll join SMU immediately after graduation.

Once he arrives at SMU, Nwokobia is expected to compete as a true freshman. He's a player who the Mustangs' coaching staff is very high on -- and one who multiple schools wanted to flip in the final months of recruiting.

"A couple of schools made it extremely hard," Nwokobia said. "Oklahoma State made it hard. Oregon made it hard. Texas Tech made it hard. There were a couple of other schools that made this one of the toughest decisions of my life."

So why SMU? Nwokobia made his answer simple, yet in-depth. It's an answer that speaks of having the best of both worlds. It's also an answer that re-establishes why Nwokobia was such a wanted individual -- on and off the field.

"SMU is home, and I want my mom to come to every game," he said. "I know that SMU is one of the best academic schools in the country. The internships I'll have in the summer, the people I'll get to meet, the connections I'll make after football ... all of that played a big role."