Slowly but surely, Austin Roon is starting to understand the ebbs and flows of recruiting.

It all starts with the wild card, the one program willing to stick their neck out and lead the pack. You’re not crazy enough to jump off a bridge and fall 50 feet into the lake. Then one person does it, comes up safely and it doesn’t seem so scary. Suddenly everyone jumps.

That’s basically recruiting. One team offers a kid. Others follow.

And in the case of Austin Roon -- a 6-foot-3, 210-pound linebacker from Michigan who’s built like a brick wall and finds the ball like a magnet.

At the end of April, newly-hired defensive line coach Robert Rodriguez phoned Roon -- the Sun Devils first communication with the inside linebacker -- and offered him a scholarship.

“It was pretty unreal,” Roon said. “It’s crazy because they have a great staff with a lot of ex-NFL coaches and a lot of experience. Big-time team right there.”

ASU’s offer was the first power-five pickup for Roon. The Sun Devils jumped into the lake. And Roon thinks many more will do the same.

“Sometimes they’ll be hesitant to pull the trigger and then when one college, then others will come in a lot more often,” Roon said of his ASU offer.

“It was huge because the day after that, I got another one, started talking to some more coaches and it definitely helped widen my spectrum because Arizona is far from Michigan. I hope it opened up the doors to a lot of other places.”

Roon mentioned his other power-five offer. It was from Syracuse, the school former ASU defensive coordinator Tony White left Tempe for. It increased Roon’s prospects to a dozen and bumping his power-five offers to a pair.

“I think that’s always been my dream,” Roon said of playing in a power-five conference, “to get to the highest level of college football.”

Last season at Byron Center High in Michigan, Roon was a three-sport athlete letting in basketball, football and lacrosse. On the football field, the 6-foot-3, 210-pound, soon-to-be senior describes his game as an all-around linebacker.

“I play fast. I play physical,” Roon said. “I can get off blocks. I run sideline-to-sideline well. That’s what I think, or at least what people have told me.”

While Roon admitted he hasn’t been yet in too many conversations with the Sun Devil coaches, just given his offer came less than two weeks ago, he said right now a bundle of group-of-five schools like Western Michigan, Toledo, Eastern Michigan, as well as Syracuse out of the ACC, have been in contact.

But those schools, Roon admitted, don’t have the pro model.

“It’s definitely a great thing,” he said. “They have a lot of experience and have played with and coaches with the best of the best. They know how to make you that much better. And they played at the highest-level so they know how to get you there.”

And in his decision, Roon said proximity from his home in Michigan will be a nonfactor. Instead, he wants to fit the right fit, the best opportunity for him to succeed, and a place that feels like family.

“Obviously I want to be wanted, I want to be in constant contact with the coaches. I want to go to a family-type of a team where I feel like the players like their own kids,” Roon said of his recruiting wish-list. “I want to go to a campus that feels like home, somewhere that isn’t too crazy but somewhere I could see myself living for the next four years.”

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