Before each play, as he hovers menacingly near the line of scrimmage, Laiatu Latu must decide how he’s going to humiliate the guy standing across from him.
Does he go with a swim move, the UCLA edge rusher twisting his body before raising his arm above his head like he’s doing the breaststroke?
How about a double swipe, where he knocks down the offensive tackle’s arms multiple times?
Maybe he’ll go with his favorite, the Euro step. Like its counterpart in basketball, this move involves a head-fake and a step one way before cutting the other.
That was exactly how Latu made a 294-pound offensive tackle look like he was stuck in mud last weekend before wrapping his arms around Stanford quarterback Ashton Daniels and dragging him to the ground.
“His athleticism for his size, I think, is rare. He’s got long arms. But he can bend and move.”
— UCLA coach Chip Kelly on Laiatu Latu
Thriving on the edge of destruction, Latu is pummeling almost everyone in his path a little more than a year after returning from a neck injury that threatened his career.
He’s gone from a comeback player of the year to a player of the year candidate on the best defense UCLA has fielded in decades. The senior no longer thinks about being told he’d never get back on the field, only what he can do every time he’s on it.
“Really, it’s just football,” said Latu, who could become the first UCLA first-team All-American on defense since linebacker Eric Kendricks in 2014. “That’s why I like it. I just go out there and do me and don’t think too much about anything else but the game that week, the scheme and how we’re going to beat whoever it is that we’re playing.”
Soon enough, he’ll go from playing Buffaloes and Trojans to Bears and Lions. Having proven in his second season back from injury that he’s not a one-year wonder, the transfer from Washington is projected as a top-10 pick on most NFL mock draft boards.
“Obviously, proud is an understatement,” said Kerry Latu, the single mother who refused to watch her son’s dream die. “Almost like want to pinch myself, seeing where he’s at now compared to the situation he was in two years ago.”
He pairs a Greek statue’s frame with a sprinter’s burst of speed.
“His athleticism for his size, I think, is rare,” UCLA coach Chip Kelly said, referring to Latu’s standing 6-foot-5 and a sinewy 265 pounds. “He’s got long arms. But he can bend and move.”
Some of those movements are a function of playing rugby all the way into his freshman year at Washington, where he starred on a club team. Kelly said coaches recently watched Latu catch a few footballs and mused that he would make a tremendous tight end. His younger brother, Keleki, actually plays that position for Nevada.
A position switch is probably not in Laiatu’s future given that his team-leading 6.5 sacks are tied for ninth nationally. They have sparked a team-wide surge during which UCLA has piled up 24 sacks — almost twice the 14 it had logged to this point last season.
“Shoot, I’m just happy because as a team we’re killing it on defense,” Latu said as the No. 23 Bruins (5-2 overall, 2-2 Pac-12) prepared to face Colorado (4-3, 1-3) on Saturday at the Rose Bowl. “Everyone’s flying around, pass rush as a whole group has been a lot better than last year, so I’m happy with it all.”
In just 1½ seasons, Latu’s 17 sacks place him in a six-way tie for No. 13 on the school’s all-time career list while winning him an army of admirers.
“I mean, he’s just insane off the edge,” Bruins linebacker Carson Schwesinger said. “When you have a game-wrecker like that, it’s hard not to be excited to watch that.”
He’s beat the odds beyond his comeback. For an assignment in second or third grade — he can’t remember which — he was asked what he wanted to be when he grew up.
“Professional football player,” the kid wrote, sharing his million-to-one wish.
Fulfilling that prophecy has come with a heavy academic component, Latu spending hours studying every nuance of the offensive linemen, tight ends and running backs he’s trying to beat to reach the backfield.
What kind of steps do they take? Do they hold their hands high or low? Which move in his arsenal might best capitalize on those tendencies?
Sometimes the linemen unveil their own sneaky moves, forcing Latu to devise a counter.
UCLA edge rusher Laiatu Latu led the Bruins last season in tackles for loss and sacks last season, and still feels he has lots to prove for this upcoming season.
Watching from her seat in the Rose Bowl, Kerry Latu finds herself so engrossed in her son’s pursuit of quarterbacks and running backs that she doesn’t think about his neck. Having prayed before the game for the health of both teams, she’s freed herself to cheer just like any other fan.
“When it’s game day, I think I’m more focused on getting the quarterback — I’m just like, ‘Go get him!’ ” Kerry said, her voice rising to a shriek. “Just anxious for him to get the quarterback versus nervous that, God forbid, something is going to happen.”
Something already did. No way were the mother and the son going to let it end his career.
Before his sophomore season at Washington, Laiatu sent his mother a text.
“The trainer needs to talk to me,” it read.
A hit to the neck in preseason practice left some lingering numbness. It was eventually decided that he should sit out a 2020 season shortened by COVID-19 in hopes that the injury would resolve itself. It didn’t.
Surgery also didn’t help. Specialists who met with him over Zoom without the benefit of conducting an exam all said the same thing: Playing again was too dangerous. Before the Huskies’ spring practice in 2021, Laiatu was told he’d have to medically retire.
“Horrible,” Kerry said of that moment. “Just gut-wrenching.”
From her home in Sacramento, Kerry felt helpless whenever she tried to comfort her son.
It took two years for UCLA’s Laiatu Latu to get a doctor’s permission to play after a neck injury. The comeback culminated in two sacks Saturday.
“I would just reach out to him and it was like, ‘I’m OK, mom, I’m OK, mom,’ ” Kerry remembered, “and I knew he wasn’t OK. It just broke my heart because I couldn’t — other than being there for him, supporting him and encouraging him, I couldn’t change it.”
Laiatu’s willingness to sign a liability waiver didn’t budge anyone, so his mom made her own move. Kerry researched players who had been medically cleared to return from serious injuries in addition to the doctors who had been involved with their cases. She kept getting referrals for Dr. Robert Watkins, a Southern California-based orthopedic spine surgeon, but didn’t reach out because she feared giving her son false hope.
Finally, after a phone conversation in which her son broke down, Kerry called to set up an appointment with Watkins. She drove down from Sacramento and flew her son in from Seattle. After a three-hour battery of tests, Watkins delivered some long-awaited news: He would clear Laiatu to play again.
Tears filled the mother’s and son’s eyes.
“It was almost like, is this really happening?” Kerry said.
Laiatu flew back to Washington, hoping officials there would reverse their decision. They didn’t. But he had a strong ally in outside linebackers coach Ikaika Malloe, who had been a surrogate father since Latu’s arrival on campus. They had attended Bible study together, and Malloe kept his sidelined star involved with the team by letting him create practice drills for other players.
When Malloe agreed to take a job at UCLA in December 2021, Latu was in the transfer portal. They were about to team up once more.
Latu arrived in Westwood needing final clearance from UCLA to play again.
That meant he was limited to individual drills in spring practice. He couldn’t participate in the spring showcase.
The payoff came when he found out in late spring 2022 that team doctors would allow his return. After shedding more joyful tears, he went on to lead the team with 10.5 sacks and 12.5 tackles for loss while being selected one of three national comeback players of the year.
In the weeks that followed, the family detected NFL interest, not to mention lingering doubts.
“We were hearing that he’s got the potential to get drafted but maybe not as high as he would hope because he’s only kind of one year back after the injury,” Kerry Latu said. “So what we were hearing is like they probably want to see him two years in a row.”
Coming back was easy compared to the comeback. It meant that Laiatu would get to spend another year with teammates he loved while also improving the technique on his moves.
Last week, he was selected an Associated Press first-team All-American. He still has a chance to fulfill his preseason goal of leading the nation in sacks.
It could be just a matter of making all the right moves.
Go beyond the scoreboard
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