Day 1 since BYU brought in Kalani Sitake to be the Cougars new football coach there was a lot of talk about the Kalani effect in recruiting, and how there would be a different recruiting approach compared to former head coach Bronco Mendenhall.
That impact is already making waves as four-star wide receiver Oliver Martin (Iowa, City, Iowa) is planning on taking his final official visit to BYU the weekend of January 27, according to Dusty Litster of Deseret News Rewind.
BYU has been in on Martin at least since this past summer and have even sent out wide receivers coach Ben Cahoon out to Iowa City to watch Martin play baseball. On Thursday, the Cougars coaching staff had an in-home visit with Martin which included head coach Kalani Sitake, offensive coordinator Ty Detmer and Cahoon.
https://twitter.com/rakoto10/status/819984854079025153
Florida was the most recent school to offer Martin and he is currently taking an official visit to Michigan State this weekend. His other offers include Iowa, Auburn, Oregon Notre Dame, Wisconsin and many other Midwest power programs.
Seeing BYU in the mix for Martin is a feat among itself as they are just one of two Western programs to have an offer to the wide receiver, and also Martin is not a member of the LDS faith.
Even more to consider is that Oliver took an unofficial visit to Provo last year to meet up with BYU baseball head coach Mike Littlewood as Martin is also an elite baseball player and is possibly looking at the idea of playing multiple sports in college. However, the meeting with coach Littlewood never happened but even missing out on talking about baseball just getting him to view the campus on that unofficial visit is a win for the BYU football team.
Martin also comes from a swimming family and he has good enough times to swim the 50-yard freestyle at nearly any college program. Swimming at BYU or another school might be in the mix but he has not come out and said that he definitely wants to pursue swimming in addition to football — or baseball for that matter — at the collegiate level. College coaches will do what they can to get a player to commit to play football so it might be possible that Martin is a dual-sport athlete at the collegiate level.
Matthew Bain of the Iowa City Press-Citizen and Des Moines Register covers the high school preps for Martin’s high school team said, “BYU might allow him to swim the 50-yard free and that is another reason BYU is in it (to sign Martin).
Martin is not a very public person which is why finding out what is top-five are or getting an interview with him has been challenging. He would rather just play football and let his performance do the talking.
"Oliver Martin wants to be the best at everything he does, he doesn't want to talk about it, but just wants it to be known" @MatthewBain_
— ESPN960Sports (@espn960sports) January 13, 2017
While BYU is a big name program, the spotlight of Martin at Florida, Auburn, Notre Dame or other Power Five schools would be much larger there compared to playing in Provo, Utah. By playing out West with the Cougars could shield him a bit from the spotlight that would definitely come if he were to have a breakout season with an SEC or Big Ten school.
National signing day is Feb. 1.
Get even more info on Oliver Martin listen to these interviews from Matthew Bain and Dusty Litster.
Listen to “Dusty Litster – Deseret News Rewind” on Spreaker.
Listen to “Matthew Bain – Iowa City Press-Citizen and Des Moines Register” on Spreaker.