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Marcus Mariota might soon become the No. 1 overall pick in the NFL Draft. Hordes of team staffers will gather to gawk at him during this week's combine in Indianapolis, weighing him by tens of millions of dollars.
And his high school coach was a Ute.
For those who aren't aware, Mariota's senior prep season — in which he led Honolulu's St. Louis High to a state title — coincided with Darnell Arceneaux's arrival as head coach.
So tongue firmly in cheek, we asked Arceneaux last week: Oregon? Why not Utah?
"He was on nobody's radar," said Arceneaux, a Utah starter from 1997-99 who is currently entering his second season as quarterbacks coach at Occidental. "He didn't really have any tape because he didn't play that much."
It's common knowledge now that Mariota had sat the bench, was spotted before his senior year by Oregon's eagle-eyed Mark Helfrich, shined at an Oregon camp, and the history of college football changed thusly.
But after Arceneaux arrived, did he at least try to tip his alma mater to the silky smooth, unflappable track star with the flawless mechanics and the firecracker release?
He did, he said, just as he did many other schools. He talked to Utah coaches, but "you couldn't just offer a kid without any tape," and Mariota had taken just 50 or 60 snaps — plus maybe a dozen at wide receiver. "Every college kind of goes back now and says, 'How did we let this kid go through the cracks?'"
Fun as it may be to play what-if, it probably wouldn't have mattered. Oregon was always Mariota's dream school, Arceneaux said.
The two still text, and they've coached together at a free offseason quarterbacks clinic in Hawaii.
"When we see each other, it's like the last time we saw each other when he was in high school," he said. "He's never gotten too big for the game."
Arceneaux said he tried to motivate Mariota with the story of his own career, which was limited by concussions and injuries to his shins, back, hand, foot and shoulder.
"You never know when something's going to be taken away from you," preached Arceneaux, who went on to a CFL tryout and a stint in arena football.
But by the same token, Arceneaux credits those hardships for making him a better coach.
He first picked up the clipboard at 25, as head coach at St. Louis — his alma mater, as well. He went on to coach at Mililani High, then back to St. Louis, before a year color commentating on University of Hawaii games. In 2014, he broke into the college ranks at Occidental.
Life on the sidelines — seeing things from all angles and hearing struggles and grievances from different athletes — has made him smarter than he was as a player, he said.
"Some of the things I know now, I wish I knew when I was playing, because the game seems so much easier."
Arceneaux may, eventually, have something to offer his alma mater, after all: Himself.
He spoke to Kyle Whittingham after going toe-to-toe with Scott Mitchell in the alumni game last spring and expressed that he'd love to one day return.
Of course, as with Mariota, that's if they'd have him.
— Matthew Piper
Twitter: @matthew_piper