When Jovan Olafioye was paraded like a baby pachyderm at a tryout camp in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., earlier this year, Wally Buono admits it was his elephantine size which first attracted him to the prospect.
"Who found him?" says the B.C. Lions coach, rhetorically. "I did. He was 355 pounds. I said, 'Jovan, it really would be helpful if you could get down to 330.' When he came to training camp, I didn't recognize him. It was as if we'd never met. He had totally changed. He's a very conscientious guy."
Today , the Lions 6-6, 313-pound right guard is only 88 per cent of the young man he used to be, having dropped 42 pounds from the time Buono first saw him. But his appetite for contact remains undiminished.
"He's a physical gift," says centre Angus Reid. "He's a big, strong, powerful man who likes to hit people. All I have to do is tell him who to hit. That guy won't be getting up for a while. He has all the tools that you need, and the guy has major enthusiasm. When we watch film, we just enjoy sitting back and watching him obliterate people. You're just going to see him get better and better as he figures out the details of the game."
At 22, the youngest player on the Lions will be making only his fifth career start in professional football Friday night in Edmonton against the Eskimos. Like most O-linemen, Olafioye doesn't attract a lot of attention, except among the players, coaches and cognoscenti who have watched him grow in pass-blocking leverage and run-blocking impact week to week.
Sure, the Lions offence is a work in progress and defences keep coming and coming at them, particularly the Saskatchewan Roughriders whose different alignments and blitzes left Olafioye's head swimming in a 37-18 loss to the Riders on July 10. However, quarterback Travis Lulay was the first to acknowledge that he stayed upright throughout B.C.'s 24-20 loss to Toronto last Friday, a game in which the Argos failed to register a sack. Lulay is an adroit scrambler, but he succeeded in completing 68 per cent of his 40 pass attempts because nobody got to the quarterback very often.
They did their job quietly, efficiently and, on occasion, spectacularly, such as the time Olafioye pulled and blocked for Lulay on a rollout pass that covered 66 yards, only to have it dropped by Emmanuel Arceneaux at the other end.
"Jovan is a special athlete," Lulay says. "I don't think he knows his own strength. The veteran guys said that early on in training camp. Big 63 there ... once he figures everything out, he's going to be a force to be reckoned with. He's a naturally strong and athletic guy with a nasty attitude. He attacks guys. He was worried about making mistakes, early in training camp. I just encouraged him, 'If you make a mistake, at least do it at 100 miles per hour.' Honestly, it's been a blessing to have him here. It's going to be fun to see when it all starts to click for him."
While Olafioye's future prospects have the Lions drooling in anticipation, he left NFL teams with dry mouth after his final collegiate season at North Carolina Central. Olafioye was a conversion project, going from the defensive line to the offensive line in his junior year, and he was still trying to get the hang of his new role by the time he graduated. The Detroit native did get an invitation to the NFL Lions' rookie camp in 2009, but he didn't progress beyond that.
"They [Detroit Lions] said that I had all the speed, physical attributes, the athleticism, the motor to play with them," Olafioye says. "But they were looking for somebody to play right now. I was more of a project, because I'd only been playing O-line for two years. Every Pro Day I did, they loved me. They just didn't like my technique. Like I told them, 'I've only been at this for two years.' "
Snafus have occurred, of course, because of Olafioye's professional inexperience. When the regular season began, Jovan and the man immediately next to him, right tackle Jon Hameister-Ries, had a cumulative total of zero career games in the CFL. But Olafioye and Hameister-Ries are looking so comfortable after just four games that veteran right tackle Sherko Haji-Rasouli, who has been out with a knee injury, might have trouble getting his old job back.
The move of Dean Valli from centre to replace injured left guard Andrew Jones seems to have freed Valli of the anxiety and responsibility for making calls just before the snap. He can just play, allowing Reid to stand over the ball and make the quick study of the defence, something he has been doing for 10 seasons.
"Angus gives me a lot of guidance," Olafioye says. "Man, Angus knows everything. Any time you have a question, he has the answer. I think I've progressed since I got here. Every game I play, I learn something new."
Right now, he's like a sponge, which is an unfortunate analogy is some respects, considering that a sponge is soft and Olafioye plays anything but a powder-puff game.
"He's short on experience, but he's got the smash-em-up part down pat," Reid says.
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