St. George • Nick Saban was about to do something he vowed never to do.

Standing alongside his desk, Alabama’s Hall of Fame coach lined up each one of his seven national championship rings and sat his latest prospect down to admire the accomplishments. Looking at the 6-foot-7, 245-pound tight end from St. George, Saban explained this could be his future.

First, though, Saban had to break his own rule. He said he never offered a Crimson Tide scholarship without watching tape of a recruit.

Yet, after seeing the five-star tight end from southern Utah for one day at Alabama’s summer camp, Saban couldn’t let him walk away without an offer.

“I just want you to know, I don’t do this. I don’t know who you are,” Todd Harris remembered Saban telling his son. “But based on what we saw out there, you belong here.”

The prospect got up, left the room ... and wound up in Provo.

“I was in awe. I was like, ‘How do you not play at Alabama?’ We walked out of there, and he said, ‘I’m not playing football here,’” Harris said.

BYU was calling instead.

Pine View High School star Brock Harris, BYU’s highest-rated recruit in nearly two decades, didn’t just turn down Saban. He spurned every big name in college football: Kirby Smart, Dan Lanning, Jim Harbaugh, Lincoln Riley and Mario Cristobal, just to name a few. They all had rings and resumes and rolled out the red carpet.

But Brock wanted something they couldn’t offer: a clean slate to build a championship team on his own.

In the Cougars’ recruiting pitch, they told Brock he’d spearhead a movement to bring BYU to the national stage. If he committed, others would follow. They had the resources to make it happen.

It’s a vision that convinced one of St. George’s best athletes to stay in the state to play college football.

“Things are changing,” Brock said. “We have the best recruiting class that BYU has ever had. People are going to realize, BYU is going to be a national competitor from now forward.”

Locking him down

As players on official visits rolled into Provo over the summer, BYU’s coaching staff was desperately trying to lock down a recruit four hours away from campus.

BYU head coach Kalani Sitake and his staff knew the linchpin of the Cougars’ 2026 class, and their foreseeable future, rested on Brock’s shoulders. At Pine View High School, he was eviscerating defenses to the tune of 1,700 receiving yards and 22 touchdowns. His power forward-esque frame made secondaries look silly and his strength overwhelmed any linemen in his way. It was the type of raw athleticism that made Miami offer him as a freshman.

Not to mention the top-five tight end in the country had connections to all the best prospects he could lure to Provo with a commitment.

So as the summer dragged on without any movement, Sitake instructed his staff to get Brock locked down by any means necessary.

On the football side, offensive coordinator Aaron Roderick and tight end coach Kevin Gilbride laid out an audacious path to the College Football Playoff. They argued that if Brock committed, the Cougars could then surround him with enough four- and five-star prospects that they would instantly contend for a playoff spot as soon as 2027. BYU had the money, they said, they just needed Brock’s name recognition on the recruiting trail to make other recruits trust coming to Provo.

The biggest name they discussed was five-star quarterback Ryder Lyons out of California. Brock and Lyons were close friends and BYU was heavily in the mix to land the QB. If Brock committed, BYU was confident Lyons would follow — instantly giving the Cougars the foundation of a top 25 team. And Brock would be the genesis of it all, something he wouldn’t be at Alabama or Georgia.

“I’m driving the boat as well,” Brock said. “That’s a big thing they said to me. ‘If we start getting big-name guys like you, especially LDS kids, it can be such a huge, huge thing.’”

And on the financial side, BYU insisted it could compete with anybody to get him in Cougar blue. Brock’s’ representation, led by agent Billy Cress and his father, Todd Harris, said the minimum number to get in the door was around $1.2 million over two years. BYU, the coaching staff assured the Harrises, would more than match it.

Other schools, including Oregon and Michigan, were hesitant to name the figure outright — instead alluding to the range of NIL money that would be coming in Eugene or Ann Arbor.

“Nobody ever came out, except for BYU, and said, ‘This is the number,’” Todd Harris said.

The Cougars added stipulations. If BYU was going to pay up, they wanted a commitment quickly so they could start building out the rest of the class they promised Brock. They also did not want him to take any other official visits after he committed — something Brock wanted to do. BYU was willing to pay more to speed up the process and not see the star recruit poached by another school.

“Billy took that and said, ‘Is it worth this amount of money, Brock, not to go on a visit?’” Todd Harris said. “Brock is like, ‘Yeah.’ So Billy went back and got more.”

There was one more tipping point. Brock wanted a multi-year contract, which is uncommon for college players. Todd Haris said Brock was “the first player that I heard got a multi-year deal.”

But before he signed, Brock asked one question about Lyons. He wanted to be sure his deal wasn’t worth too much money that BYU wouldn’t have enough to also sign Lyons. It would defeat the purpose of why he would be coming to Provo.

“At the end of it, Brock was like, ‘I don’t want more money if it means taking it away from Ryder,” Todd Harris said.

BYU assured him Brock wasn’t. So he committed to the Cougars in April and went to work on getting his quarterback to Provo. Lyons committed in late June.

Recruiting the roster

As an 18-year-old, Brock’s main method of communication is Snapchat.

Throughout their recruitment, he and Lyons would use the social media app to share their thoughts on different potential destinations. They went as far as having a pact that wherever one of them committed, the other would follow.

They synced up their recruiting timelines, too. Both are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and will serve a mission for one year before becoming freshmen in 2027.

“I was texting with him, and he was telling me about how he loves Michigan like me,” Brock said. “And he’s like, ‘Dang, but I’m feeling the spirit at BYU.’ He’s never felt that. And I’m like, ‘I’m right there with you.’”

But when Brock committed to BYU, the tight end became more forceful in his advocacy for the Cougars — laying out most of what Roderick, Sitake and Gilbride told him. Lyons had visits lined up to Oregon, USC and BYU. Brock was scheduled to visit BYU the same weekend.

And while they were waiting in BYU’s equipment room, Brock finally broke through.

“He’s like, ‘This is cool and all, but it’s just not Oregon,’’ Brock recalled the quarterback saying.

He had considered Oregon, too, grew up in the state, and could speak to Lyons’ plight.

“I was like, ‘It is wants versus needs,’” Harris said. “Yeah, OK. But Oregon has these temporary things you really don’t need. They are cool jerseys, whatever. But at the end of the day, do you really need that? Are you going to be happy there? I was just talking to him about what he really, really should be looking into.”

Three weeks later, Lyons committed to BYU and an NIL deal worth a reported $3 million.

Since then, Brock said, the floodgates have opened. He has a group message with all the prospects, encouraging them to come to Provo.

“Other kids were like, ‘I’m jumping on board now.’ And we saw a ton more kids committed right after Ryder,” Harris said. “We try to get guys to come and just text them every day and say, ‘We want you here. BYU is home.’”

BYU has the 23rd-ranked recruiting class in the country — the best in school history — and has reeled in a quartet of four-star recruits plus a five-star. BYU only trails Texas Tech in the Big 12.

A new future

During BYU’s off week in September, Gilbride made the four-hour trek from Provo to St. George to watch Harris play.

BYU’s tight ends coach was no longer trying to lock down a deal or sell a vision. He was there to see a vision he had worked so hard to create.

That night, sitting alongside Todd Harris, Gilbride saw the player to whom BYU has hitched its future. Harris was dominant as he went for five touchdowns on five receptions for 189 yards. He broke loose for touchdowns of 62 and 59 yards against a defense that didn’t know what to do with him.

That was the player, Gilbride thought, who could lead BYU to a place it hasn’t been in decades, if ever.

Now, all BYU has to do is wait until 2027 when he arrives on campus.

But the Cougars have waited decades for a player like Harris.

Another year won’t hurt.

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