When Bai Jobe first arrived in Oklahoma as an eighth-grade exchange student from Senegal in November of 2018, he had never seen a football game. His dream was to play college basketball.
That’s what brought Jobe to his host family in Norman, Okla. James Jackson of The Oklahoman wrote a great piece ahead of this past high school football season detailing how Jobe came to live with James and Sue Bond and their family here.
Dr. James Bond is an orthopedic surgeon with an affinity for basketball but with plenty of experience working on football sidelines as a sports-injury doctor. It was during one of Bond’s shifts at a September football game between Norman and Mustang in the fall of 2020 where Jobe tagged along and first really entertained the idea of playing football. After Dr. Bond called Community Christian School head football coach Mat McIntosh and asked if it was too late in the season for Jobe to come out for football, the rest as they say is history.
Of course, McIntosh said it wasn’t too late and, after some early frustrations adjusting to the game, Jobe quickly showcased why he was a natural talent on the gridiron. It was in Jobe’s fourth game as a sophomore when he was named The Oklahoman’s staff pick for Player of the Week after registering nine tackles, three tackles for loss, a 40-yard interception return for a touchdown and a 24-yard fumble recovery return for a touchdown in CCS’ 27-7 win over Bethel.
The recruiting interest started in earnest in March of 2021 when Pittsburgh was the first to offer Jobe. That’s when the reality began to sink in that major college football might be in his future.
“Going back a year really right at this time is probably when Bai really believed that he was a football player and that his future ultimately was going to be connected to football way more than it was going to be connected to basketball. Just in visiting with him and talking to him that began to really click with him,” McIntosh said.
By the start of this past football season, Jobe already had nine Division I scholarship offers. For McIntosh, it validated everything he and his staff had felt about Jobe’s potential from the first moment they met him.
“We told him as soon as he came out that we really believed he was a Division I football player. Just his natural gifting and talents really lended it to that. We knew he was going to have opportunities,” McIntosh said.
Jobe is still gravitating to the game, but the 6-foot-4, 215 pound EDGE always possessed a unique length and explosiveness. It’s Jobe’s willingness to learn and be coached the game of football that strikes McIntosh the most.
“He’s still very much just learning the game, but every day in practice and then as we went throughout the season in games, you could just see him grasping more and more stuff. Obviously, with us, he’s been nothing but great at trying to learn and develop. And so after we got through this year and coaches could really put on some tape and see him come off the edge, see how explosive he was off the ball, see how his closing speed to run down a play from the backside…as soon as coaches began to see that, we knew the sky was going to be the limit,” McIntosh said.
Now, after a junior season in which Jobe recorded 16.5 sacks, Jobe holds 28 Division I scholarship offers according to 247Sports. Evidenced by his latest bump up in the class of 2023 On3 player rankings to No. 25 nationally, Jobe is one of the fastest risers in his class. In the month of February, Jobe picked up 10 Division I scholarship offers. That list includes the two programs that played for a national championship seven weeks ago in Alabama and Georgia.
Take a look a the biggest risers in the updated class of 2023 On300 rankings📈
More here from @GHamilton_On3: https://t.co/MzWlePsVPa pic.twitter.com/wnNwRAxBbE
— On3 Recruits (@On3Recruits) February 28, 2022
“We told him not long ago that at the end of the day in this, he was going to have the opportunity to go really anywhere that he wanted to go. Even this past week with Nick Saban calling on Tuesday to talk to him and then during the phone call Saban himself being the one making the offer to him. I told him when we got off of that phone conversation that what that means is this: He needs to look at schools that he really wants to go to and there’s no school that’s off the table,” McIntosh said.
“Because I even told him on Tuesday that even if Georgia hadn’t offered him yet, that if we called Georgia and said, ‘Hey, Bai wants to come to Georgia. They’re going to open up their arms and say welcome.’ What’s funny is within the hour of me making that statement to him, Georgia had offered him. That’s the thing with him is just seeing the reality that he has every imaginable option that a high school kid can have and he’s fully aware of that at this point for sure.”
During his first season playing as a sophomore, the message from the coaching staff was simple. Go find the ball carrier.
“When he first came out, you know, all along when we were trying to get him to come out to play football, with just his length and explosiveness, he has the potential to be an NFL rush end. We’ve always just thought that. Defensively where we’ve always thought is his high end, you know, when he came out and he didn’t know anything, we just lined him up at that defensive end spot and really gave him this instruction, ‘Hey, find the ball and chase it. Whatever you think.’ Really that last part of his sophomore year when he came out, that’s all he did,” McIntosh said.
Now, Jobe’s role within CCS’ defense continues to expand.
“This past year we gave him more responsibility. Worked more on his technique, worked more on having multiple gap responsibilities on occasion, different blitz assignments that he would have to do and he picked all that up well. Then, as we got through last year, we began to tell him that at our level of football, there’s no one that can block him, but people can hold him if they get their hands on him. Really began to start working with him about fighting with his hands and keeping people’s hands off of him and that’s a thing that we’ve continued to work with him. He did a great job with that,” McIntosh said.
In so many ways, that growth process has still only just begun.
“Going forward next year, we’re going to move him around some more. For our program to have someone his caliber and his natural instincts, we’re going to stand him up a lot more next year at an outside linebacker spot. Give him again some more responsibility and range of stuff to do, and we’re excited because we have no doubt he’ll thrive in that,” McIntosh said.
Jobe has also worked as a wide receiver and kick returner for CCS where he had multiple touchdown returns. As is the case with everything in Jobe’s football world, he’s still so raw and a work in progress in the best of ways. The untapped potential has college programs from coast to coast salivating. It’s in part illustrated by Jobe’s recorded 40-yard dash time.
“You know, a lot of guys who you’ll see be 4.4 kids, they’ve worked on running a 40-yard dash and spent a lot of time trying to do that. Bai’s really spent no time doing that. Now, last summer at A&M, they clocked him in a 4.6 40. And so I would just say this, a 4.6 is probably about as slow of a time as you would get out of him. If he spends some time working on being a sprinter, I have no doubt he’s lower than that,” McIntosh said.
Oklahoma offered Jobe on Dec. 30, 2021, and it’s beginning to look more and more foolish that the previous staff didn’t extend an offer sooner. With the attention surrounding Jobe’s recruitment growing by the day, McIntosh is quick to share the message that he’s passed along to every college coach that would listen.
“One of the things that I tell all of the coaches that I’ve talked to, the truth is Bai is a great young man. His measurables obviously, his length, his height, his explosiveness is why he’s getting all this attention, but, at the end of the day, just his story of where he came from and where he is are way more impressive than his measurables are,” McIntosh said.
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