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Issue ? December 12, 2007

Top gridiron recruit Willie Mobley has one eye on the Big Ten and the other on geopolitics
Iranian Football
By Matt Snyders

It's easy to forget that Willie Mobley is 18 years old. Sporting a full beard and a frizzy quasi-fro, the 6-foot-2-inch, 250-pound defensive lineman looks more like a man approaching his 30s than a boy in the last throes of adolescence. At the two-story townhouse he shares with his mother in Chanhassen, Mobley is the man of the house: He answers the door and offers a firm handshake.

His room is papered with newspaper headlines testifying to his gridiron prowess. "Things were getting crazy this summer," Mobley says, kicking a pile of dirty clothes out of the way. "I was getting, like, 80 text messages a day from recruiters."

It's been a good couple of months. In November, the Eden Prairie High School senior led his team to its second straight undefeated season, trouncing Cretin-Derham Hall 51-20 in the state class AAAAA championship. Two weeks ago, he accepted a full-ride scholarship to play football at top-ranked Ohio State. Scouts around the country expect big things from No. 96.

"His biggest strengths are quickness and leverage," says Jamie DeMoney, a scouting analyst for Forbes Report and editor of prepnation.com. "If you wanted to look at the NFL and draw comparisons in terms of style, he plays a bit like a Warren Sapp. He's not a two-gap guy who'll just eat up space and occupy blockers. He's more of a one-gap guy who'll get a lot of penetration and wreak havoc behind the line of scrimmage."

Armed with a 4.85 40-yard dash and a 405 squat, Mobley has positioned himself as the second most highly touted prep player in the state this year, behind Cretin-Derham Hall wide receiver phenom Michael Floyd ("Any other year Mobley would be far and away the top recruit in the state," says DeMoney).

Though he played defensive tackle in high school, Mobley will likely make the move to D-end at the collegiate level due to his speed and relatively small size. His exceptional agility was perhaps best displayed in this year's championship game in the Metrodome when he rushed nine yards for a touchdown midway through the third quarter.

"When he ran that in, he looked more like a halfback than a lineman," says Eden Prairie head coach Mike Grant, who now boasts two consecutive undefeated seasons manning the Eagles. "I think that's when a lot of people realized this kid's not your typical athlete."

Nor does he have a typical background. Born to a black father and Iranian mother, Mobley is one of just 2,500 people of Iranian heritage living in Minnesota. "People can see that I'm a mix of something, but they can't tell of what," Mobley says. "When they ask, I always tell them both sides: black and Persian. When I say Persian, sometimes they get confused, so I just say Iranian. Some people are like, 'Iran? Aren't we going to war with them?'"

Iranian Football - City Pages (Minneapolis/St. Paul)