Who is Phil Ford?
It’s not often that recruiting news hits on Saturday night, but Phil Ford did his best to change that earlier this evening. Ford used twitter to express his earnest desire to join BYU’s football program after being baptized a member of the LDS church about a month ago.
So who is he?
Ford is a 6-foot-6, 330 offensive lineman from Kansas City, Missouri who signed with Kansas out of High School. After failing to qualify academically he joined Iowa Western’s football program and redshirted this past season.
Since attending Iowa Western he’s maintained a 2.5 grade point average and is set to graduate this coming December. Kansas has maintained contact with other Big12 programs showing interested according to Ford.
Ford attends a ward that includes a lot of BYU graduates and they speak very highly of the school which has piqued Ford’s interest. One of the people he’s met is BYU transfer Jake Heaps who apparently still talks very highly of the program he decided to transfer from.
“Jake (Heaps) says that he misses BYU a lot for a lot of reasons and that it was very hard for him to transfer,” says Ford. “He talks about how it’s a great environment for LDS people and he really does miss a lot of those things about BYU.”
Ford sent off an email to the football program about two weeks ago and is anxiously awaiting word from the coaching staff.
“BYU sounds like the perfect school for me,” said Ford. “Everyone I talk to absolutely loves the place and now that I’m a member of the church, I want to go there and play football for them more than anything. I’m hoping that the coaches there get in touch with me and offer me a scholarship because it’s really the only school I want to play for right now.”
We’ll have more on Ford as this situation continues to develop.
Heaps continues to recruit for BYU. I’ve always though that regardless of how he played on the field, he was BYU’s best recruiter. Looking forward to hearing more about Ford!
I wouldn’t define this as Heaps still “recruiting” for BYU. I think he just gave an honest opinion about the school when asked by Ford.
I live in Kansas City and Phil Ford was a huge commitment to Kansas a while back. His high school coach is KC Chiefs hall of famer Tim Grunhard, who is now on the Kansas Coaching staff, so I don’t think this is a done deal but it would be very welcome.
Hey, we lost track of you and thought you had moved away from the area! We’re still in Omaha and make it to KC reequently. It’s be fun to catch up sometime!
Sent an email 2 weeks ago and still hasn’t heard anything? I hope BYU’s coaching staff is more responsive than that to potential recruits…
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