Rafael Varona Blakstad was just looking for directions on campus when he met a guy in NFL Academy clothes. The guy surprised the London native by asking, “Have you ever played football?” in a strong American accent. “I was kind of hooked from there,” Varona Blakstad said, noting he left a well-known rugby club to become a wide receiver.
He and his mom were visiting Loughborough University, home to the NFL Academy, when they met Lamonte Winston, the head of the academy.
While most of the top European prospects for American college football usually come from Germany and Sweden, talent from the U.K. is starting to grow.
The NFL Academy, which started in 2019, has been improving its local recruitment, and the results are becoming clear with several recent graduates now playing at Power Four conference schools.
“The British kids are getting there,” Winston said. “Soccer and rugby are king. It’s not the norm over here for kids to play multiple sports. You play one sport — that’s it.”
This makes it surprising that Welsh rugby star Louis Rees-Zammit switched to American football and joined the NFL’s international player pathway program.
Rees-Zammit, 23, was signed by the Kansas City Chiefs but didn’t make their 53-man roster. He then joined the Jacksonville Jaguars as a wide receiver on the practice squad. The Jaguars are coming to London this week to play the Chicago Bears on Sunday.
The academy uses social media and personal networks to recruit mostly Europeans aged 16 to 19. They also used the connection with Rees-Zammit, having him call Varona Blakstad when the teenager was deciding to leave the Saracens rugby academy.
“He’s achieved everything a youngster would want to in rugby, and the fact that he was making a change over to American football really meant a lot to me,” said 19-year-old Varona Blakstad.
Varona Blakstad was also part of the England academy, which meant he was on track to potentially play for his country one day.
He hopes that by switching now, he’ll have a chance at a Division I scholarship. He is 6-foot-5 and ran the 40-yard dash in 4.6 seconds.
Varona Blakstad didn’t need height or speed for his biggest moment on Tuesday when the academy faced U.S. high school De La Salle at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
The academy lost 31-9, but Varona Blakstad energized home fans when he scored a touchdown on the last play of the game by catching a tipped pass.
“I just couldn’t believe it. I was like ‘this is really happening.’ I just started playing the sport less than two months ago, and now I’ve just caught my first touchdown at Tottenham stadium,” he said.
Academy graduate Timi Oke moved from south London to Northwestern even though he began playing football at age 18. Other English talents include offensive tackles Daniel Akinkunmi (Oklahoma) and Akram Elnagmi (Pitt commit), as well as Mississippi State tight end Seydou Traore.
British fans enjoy the NFL, which has held regular-season games in London since 2007, but there are few options for kids who want to play tackle football.
“The U.K. probably should be No. 1 in terms of the amount of athletes coming out of there,” said Brandon Collier, who runs Germany-based PPI Recruits. “There’s a lot of talent there.”
