© Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports
The 49ers no longer make the trek up to Rocklin, California, for their summer practices at Sierra College like they did from 1981 to 1997, during their dynastic, five-title stretch. But in wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk, the team’s 25th overall pick in the 2020 NFL Draft, they rediscovered a bit more magic from their old summer haunt, about a half hour northeast of Sacramento.
Why Aiyuk ended up at 49ers’ old stomping grounds
Were it not for Aiyuk having played just one year of high school football at Robert McQueen High School in Reno, Nevada — where he played wide receiver and defensive back — he probably would have never played football at Sierra College. He would have had a chance at a scholarship in high school, and maybe never ended up at Arizona State, or with the 49ers.
But as he said in his post-draft interview, that one year of high school football meant college ball wasn’t going to be a possibility, unless it was at a junior college.
So, Aiyuk, the Reno native, went to Sierra, a school where head coach Ben Noonan said a lot of Reno prospects flock to (it’s about a two-hour drive between both cities). In a phone conversation with KNBR, Noonan said he was acutely aware of what type of player he was getting.
“I saw his film and he was just so explosive with the ball in his hands, whether it was punt return, kick return or interception returns. I told our staff, ‘This guy is the best receiver in the state of Nevada coming out of this high school class,’” Noonan said. “And we just looked at it and then we recruited him as a wide receiver. And we’ve had a pretty good track record; we’ve had seven wide receivers go Division I in the last seven years, so it wasn’t hard to sell them.”
It’s not hard to see why Noonan’s eyes lit up:
In both years that Aiyuk was at Sierra College — and when he transferred to Arizona State — he improved drastically. Noonan described Aiyuk as a quiet, but confident, studious and mature player who learned rapidly.
In the summer between his freshman and sophomore years at Sierra, Noonan said Aiyuk was relentless in the weight room. He added 23 or 24 pounds in his two years there, in addition to about an inch of height.
“[His] maturation over a two-year period was just incredible,” Noonan said. “His offseason between his freshman and sophomore year, he ended up improving his squat from like 310 to 500 pounds, and that’s in like a five-month offseason.”
“The weight room was just kind of in awe.”
That offseason growth wasn’t necessarily a surprise to Noonan, who described Aiyuk as “pretty self-motivated; he’s not a guy you need to push.” Aiyuk knew that the offseason between freshman and sophomore year was crucial in getting scholarship offers from Division I schools.
But if you do push him, Noonan said, he’ll respond positively. As for accountability, that was never a concern.
“He’s not a ‘list guy,’” Noonan said. “I don’t like list guys. Those lists guys, they’re on a study hall list because they missed or they’re on a list because they were late to a meeting or late to practice. Brandon was never a list guy.”
Noonan said he was most surprised by Aiyuk’s production, physicality and pensive demeanor.
“He just was a really quiet, humble kid and I knew he was talented, but I mean he played way big,” Noonan said. “He let his pads do the talking.”
Deebo, Patton, Sanders… Smith?
About that physicality.
There is no shortage of NFL comparisons for Aiyuk, and it’s equally unsurprising that there’s not much consistency in those names. He’s athletic as just about anyone in the draft, and uniquely so; with massive arms and hands, which, paired with his leaping ability and speed, result in a cosmically-difficult catch radius to prepare for.
There’s little about Aiyuk that’s easy to put in a box and say, “That’s who he reminds me of.”
Aiyuk was compared by the man who recruited him to Arizona State, Rob Likens, to ex-49er Quinton Patton (who wore the same No. 11 with the 49ers that Aiyuk has chosen), though Aiyuk has the far superior athleticism.
By draft analysts, there were Emmanuel Sanders (The Athletic’s Dane Brugler), Robert Woods (NFL Network’s Lance Zierlein) and Deebo Samuel/Nelson Agholor (Bleacher Report’s Matt Miller) comparisons.
Aiyuk said that he sees a lot of Odell Beckham Jr. in himself and set specific goals at Arizona State to surpass Beckham’s best college season of 87 catches, 1,405 yards and 14 touchdowns at LSU.
While Aiyuk didn’t reach that number, his receiving stats were still outstanding (65 catches, 1,192 yards, 8 TD) and he was third in the country in yards per punt return (16.1 yards, 1 TD) and fifth in the country in yards per kick return (31.9 yards). His head coach at Arizona State, Herm Edwards, said on KNBR that they could have found more touches for him, but had a freshman quarterback, left tackle and right guard which made that a challenge.
“We probably could have found him more balls,” Edwards said. “But we couldn’t do it.”
Noonan had some particularly high praise for Aiyuk.
“He’s a long way from achieving anything like this, but I see him a lot like Steve Smith,” Noonan said. “He is electric in the return game and Steve Smith was too, for a while, and then he’s just a really strong runner, similar to Deebo [Samuel] as well in that he’s like a running back when he gets the ball in his hands. I always thought of Steve Smith that way as just a tough grinder that had extremely great explosiveness. A run-like-a-running-back type of receiver.”
Smith finished his career with the eighth-most receiving yards in NFL history at 14,731, 12th in receptions, with 1,031, and 26th in touchdowns, with 81.
The key to a great returner, and something the 49ers have been lacking in that department, is an intangible: fearlessness. Aiyuk’s got it.
“He’s fearless, and you can’t be a punt returner unless you’re fearless. You can’t return kicks unless you’re fearless,” Noonan said. “So number one is that, but he has vision and sets up blocks so well. He hits it full speed, he really has great vision in the return game, and he’s not scared to [get hit]. What’s crazy is I very rarely have seen him take a big hit in the return game.”
That Arizona State commitment
After the conclusion of his sophomore season at Sierra, Aiyuk was a Junior College All-American and elite transfer option. He’d just capped a 60-reception, 960-yard and 14-touchdown season in only 10 games. Oh, and he averaged 38 yards per kick return with 2 TDs (94 yards his longest), and 22.4 yards per punt return with 1 TD (80 yards his longest).
And his freshman year, as a member of the All Big-8 Team, was impressive too (29 receptions, 573 yards, 5 TD). Noonan said it was in the final three games of that freshman year that Aiyuk’s Steve Smith-like physicality emerged.
“We saw the breakaway speed there, but his freshman year with us, he would make explosive plays but not end up in the end zone,” Noonan said. “And then the last three games of the year, boy, it was like, ‘Woah.’ I mean every time he touched the ball he’s in the end zone. And so it took him the first seven games of his freshman year to get to that point, and then through a really strong offseason getting bigger, faster, stronger, he broke even more tackles his sophomore year and I mean, he was unstoppable.”
Unstoppable? Unstoppable.
When Aiyuk did seek to transfer to Arizona State, the signing process became muddled by the team’s head coaching change. Longtime NFL coach Herm Edwards would be taking over the program from Todd Graham. There was consistent interest from Arizona State, but a lack of clarity in if it would hold.
Much of the reason Aiyuk was so high on Arizona State is that they’d promised him he would not be converted to defensive back, unlike a number of other interested programs. Noonan said they were “very genuine” in their interest and wanted to sign Aiyuk in February.
The biggest contender was Kansas, who made Aiyuk an offer in December of 2017. Noonan said Kansas scouts and recruiters were persistent in their pursuit of Aiyuk… and probably too persistent.
“Kansas was just putting a full court press on him flying out, legally, as much as they could, just popping up at the office unannounced and just crazy pressure, and it just didn’t feel right to him,” Noonan said. “And so I told him, ‘Let’s wait, don’t sign, don’t sign in December. I don’t know if Arizona State’s gonna pull the trigger or not but if you don’t feel good with Kansas, you’re certainly a player that’s going to have a lot of other interest.’ So it turns out, Herm Edwards and his staff are pretty smart guys and Rob Likens was really the driving force.”
Once Arizona State had reaffirmed that interest, they made sure they crossed their I’s and dotted their T’s, getting Aiyuk to sign and deliver his notarized letter of intent by 7 a.m. on February 7 of 2018. As it turns out, the neuroticism over getting that letter in was warranted.
Three hours after Aiyuk committed to Arizona State, Nick Saban’s Alabama, after not pursuing Aiyuk during the entire recruiting process, called in a last-ditch effort to sign him. One of their recruits had de-committed at the last hour.
Was Brandon still available?
Nope. Sorry, Alabama.
Noonan told Alabama Aiyuk had already committed. Aiyuk of course got a call too, but Alabama wanted him to play corner. It was a nice confidence boost, he said, but not much more than that.
And if he had been forced to play corner?
Aiyuk knew he wanted to play wide receiver in college, and eventually as a pro, but what would have happened if he had to play corner? Well, he first would have proven (and did) that he deserved to be a wide receiver, but if that failed, he likely would have taken that switch in stride.
The proof of that comes from Aiyuk’s final game of his freshman year, on November 12, 2016, against American River College.
Noonan was preparing to try and stuff the box against American River, running a Cover 0 scheme, leaving zero safeties, and man-to-man coverage against every receiver. He enlisted Aiyuk into the cornerbacking corps to try and weather the storm.
What was Aiyuk’s reaction that he’d be playing corner again?
“Ecstatic,” Noonan said.
After practicing at corner for a week, Aiyuk just went and did what you’d probably expect he’d do at this point; he locked down American River’s best receiver, Damen Wheeler, trailing him all game in press man coverage, allowing a single catch for 20 yards. Of course, he also caught six passes for game-highs of 121 yards and a pair of touchdowns in a 44-41 Sierra loss.
What the 49ers are getting
Less than four years later, Aiyuk is a professional wide receiver for the San Francisco 49ers.
From Noonan’s perspective, it couldn’t have played out any better. A lifelong 49ers fan, Noonan is also a close friend with defensive line coach Kris Kocurek.
The two coached together at Texas A&M, Kingsville, where Noonan was an offensive assistant from 2002-05, and Kocurek was a graduate assistant from 2004-05. They then reunited at West Texas A&M (Division II) in 2007, where Kocurek became defensive line coach, and Noonan was in his third year as offensive coordinator. Kocurek invited Noonan to the NFC Championship game at Levi’s Stadium last January, where the pair met up after the game.
“It’s incredible,” Noonan said about Aiyuk being drafted by the 49ers.
While it’s nearly impossible to find a former coach that would disparage a former player they were fond of, Noonan laid out the foundation for just why he believes Aiyuk will be successful in the NFL.
“The reason I’m very confident he’ll do that is because he believes that [he has room to grow],” Noonan said. “He by no means thinks he’s arrived; he will grind. He will be a worker. His top three attributes as a wide receiver are catch radius, body control and run after catch. His body control is amazing, his catch radius is off the charts and you’ve seen what he can do after the catch.”
And don’t stress yourself about the less-than-eye-popping 4.50-second 40-yard dash. Aiyuk was dealing with a core muscle injury which he underwent surgery on two weeks after the Combine, and plays exponentially faster on tape. He credited the 49ers for encouraging him to make that decision to undergo surgery.
Noonan said Aiyuk will likely enter the 49ers locker room with that same thing he entered Sierra with: “Quiet confidence.”
“He’s gonna come into a room, he’s gonna be humble, he’s gonna observe,” Noonan said. “He’s not a guy that talks first. And then he’s gonna have confidence in growing in whatever environment he’s in. He’s very adaptable. He’s an awesome kid, he’s a stud. Family did a great job raising him. He’s just one of those guys you gravitate towards and you’re always pulling for and rooting for because he’s a special type of dude.”