Luke Dalton was headed to Tallahassee for a Florida State camp last week, a showcase that had a large number of Division I schools coaches at. The 6-foot-5 300-pounder offensive lineman took a flight from Chicago and hopped on his connection in Atlanta.
As he boarded the plane, he noticed two familiar faces sitting down at the front of the plane with maroon and gold apparel: ASU running backs coach Shaun Aguano and wide receivers coach Prentice Gill.
“It was the weirdest thing,” Dalton said with a chuckle.
After the camp, Aguano and Gill approached Dalton and offered him a scholarship, acknowledging the fact that they also saw him on their flight earlier.
“It was a pretty cool moment. I was like, dude, I can’t go anywhere without someone noticing me,” Dalton said. “My dad was like, ‘Dude, you a celebrity,’ and I’m like, ‘Nah, not yet.’”
At the Florida State camp, Dalton showcased his slimmer frame through a series of drills and workouts, catching the eyes of the ASU coaches as the Sun Devils are now part of an offer list that now includes eight other schools with Kansas being the only other Power-5 option for the 2022 prospect.
“I’m definitely pretty high on ASU,” he said. “I guess I would say, as a Midwest kid, I’m keeping my eyes open to the Big Ten but I think – I was saying this to someone the other day – Arizona State is weird because it’s been in my mind like that’s such a cool football program since I started getting into this whole recruiting thing.”
Dalton said his June is packed with several unofficial visits to some of the Big 10 schools that are recruiting him but haven’t yet pulled the trigger with an offer. The only official visit he has planned is with Ball State but said that he would talk with the ASU coaches and see if he could make it out to Tempe in the next month or two for an official.
But what did Dalton show at the camp that caught the ASU coaches’ eyes?
“Something that a lot of people forget is Illinois guys, we didn’t play until the spring. So I had an offseason from the end of my sophomore season to spring of this year – so like a crazy extended offseason,” Dalton said. “I just got in the weight room, and the two things I was focused on was building my strength and building my technique … Then once football ended – it was like May, and I knew I had camps starting June 1. For that month, I lost 15 pounds, really worked on my athleticism, and got with a trainer doing quick feet training.”
Dalton noted that Aguano was really impressed with the 6-foot-5, 300-pound offensive lineman became leaner and more agile heading into the camp season – a tough change to make while still maintaining strength. Aguano told Dalton that was the key to the ASU offer, that the Sun Devils wanted to see more athleticism before they made it official.
Though Dalton’s relationship with Aguano is formidable, his main ASU recruiter is Gill.
“He’s awesome,” Dalton said of Gill. “He’s really young, cool – I like him a lot.”
Dalton was adamant after his ASU offer that the Sun Devils are his “Number one” school that he’s looking into, excited to be recruited by a program that “is on the rise.”
On the whole, though, Dalton seemed to know exactly what’s on his recruiting wish list.
“Definitely what I’m looking for in a school is, on the academic side, is a program where I can graduate and use my degree and my education,” he said. “Then, just as important on the athletic side is, day one, I want to make sure that when I come in, there doesn’t have to be coaches meetings where they say, ‘I need you guys to be more focused, I need you guys to be bought in.’
“I want to find a program where I can go in and, even when I take my officials with the other recruits, I can tell they’re bought in.”
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