Thanks to family, five-star Wyatt Davis no stranger to spotlight

BELLFLOWER, Calif. -- Wyatt Davis comes off as such a nice kid.

The top-rated offensive guard in the nation is polite, affable, willing to stand for long periods of time for interviews, like after the Bellflower (Calif.) St. John Bosco College Showcase last week when reporters and others wanted to chat him up.

Davis laughs, he thoughtfully answers questions, apologizes when it sounds like he’s repeating himself. To everyone at Bosco who knows him, Davis is a great person, salt of the earth.

Then Davis straps on his helmet and the five-star lineman turns into a ferocious, gnarled, hitting machine. He’s tough and mean and – as the saying goes -– plays through the whistle.

That level of intensity and toughness coupled with his size (6-foot-3, 328 pounds) are why Davis is regarded as one of the top prospects in the 2017 class. Alabama, Ohio State, USC and many other national powerhouses are recruiting him.

But it’s not how he’s always been.

“One of the things I always stressed to him is that football is the perfect sport because on the field you can be nasty and take advantage of all the things you’re told not to do,” said his father, Duane Davis. “Off the field you have to be a gentleman."

Wyatt was a gentleman on the field as well, or at least on the basketball court, until a confrontation during his eighth-grade year sparked an aggressiveness he had yet to tap into.

"It was like that switch went on for the first time and it was like, ‘OK, let’s see where this is going to go,’” Duane Davis said.

The Davis family knows something about football. Duane’s father (Wyatt’s grandfather), Willie, was a two-time Super Bowl champion with the Green Bay Packers, five-time Pro Bowl selection and is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Duane Davis played at Missouri, but acting in football movies -– among his various cinematic projects - was more successful for him than playing the sport. Duane played hard-hitting linebacker Alvin Mack in The Program, where his line, “All right, 60 minutes, balls out, let’s open up the whole can of kick-ass and kill them all, let the paramedics sort them out,” still carries the day.

Bosco assistant coach Chad Johnson told Davis that he informed all his players to go home and watch The Program if they haven’t seen it.

In a lighter role, Davis also played the character Featherstone, the wide receiver who couldn’t catch, for the hard-luck Texas State Fightin’ Armadillos in the movie Necessary Roughness.

“It was fun playing a wide receiver who couldn’t catch because I didn’t really have to act that much,” Duane Davis said. “It was a blast. The Program was pretty intense. Necessary Roughness was more fun.

“I actually pulled my hamstring during the filming of (Necessary Roughness) and I rehabbed it back. It was weird because at one point when I pulled my hamstring, Michael Irvin was going to double me. He’s going to double me. Do you believe that?”

So from his grandfather who was an NFL star to his father who acted in football movies to his brother, David, who started at Washington State, went the junior college route and is trying to get a sixth year at Cal, football is in Wyatt Davis’ blood. It always has been.

If Wyatt continues developing as a player, there’s no question he has a bright future in college and beyond.

Alabama was his first offer. The Crimson Tide coaching staff knew what they were seeing even at a young age. Oklahoma offered a little while later and then the floodgates opened.

The five-star offensive lineman plans to release a top five by the end of June. USC, UCLA, Stanford, Alabama, Ohio State, Michigan, Notre Dame and many others are being considered.

There has been some significant talk that Alabama is the frontrunner, but Davis, who should play tackle again at Bosco this season, dismissed those rumors and said he’s nowhere near making a decision.

No doubt, though, his visit to Tuscaloosa impressed him and Alabama’s tremendous success is playing a role in his thinking. His only scheduled official visit is to ‘Bama when it hosts Kentucky in October. Others will be taken as well.

“Already going to Alabama, I knew it was big-time football down there,” Wyatt Davis said. “It’s a linemen factory. The first time I went down there and I saw the recruits down there I was like, ‘Dang, I’m for sure playing guard here.’

“I feel like in college football, you can kind of get out anywhere (for the NFL) if you’re good enough, but it’s pretty impressive that they have offensive linemen specifically coming out every single year in the first round.”

For his part, Duane Davis said he’s serving more as an advisor in his son’s recruitment because, “You don’t want to get in the way. No matter how I may feel, he’s the one who has to go to school there.”

Duane Davis seems comfortable letting his son make the all-important choice. He watched the five-star get tougher as a middle school kid tested in that basketball game, then have to hang with former Bosco and current USC lineman Damien Mama as a freshman, where his son learned, “I could either kick butt or get my butt kicked,” Duane Davis said.

Now his son is dominating everybody in his path. He’s the best offensive guard in the country. He’s a man-child, loved by his teammates and coaches, coveted by every major program in the country.

And his decision gets closer and closer by the day.

“What I really try to get him to focus on and it seems cliché," Duane Davis said. "If football had to be taken away, how do you feel about being at that school? He asks questions and I give him my stance. Wherever he goes I’m going to support him. I just want him to have a realistic view of it and know as much as we can prior to going into it.”