It was the first ever trip out west for Adonis Otey and his family. USC had made a strong late charge in his recruitment, and he was seriously considering flipping off his Arkansas commitment and joining the Trojans.
So he and his parents hopped on a plane from Tennessee to Los Angeles with a mix of emotions.
"My mom, she was a little skeptic[al] at first because it's all the way in Cali and we're all the way in Tennessee. My dad, he was like, 'Go for it.' It's my opportunity and I only get just one," Otey recalls.
Otey, a 4-star cornerback, had come from the small town of Columbia, Tenn., and had already made one move for the benefit of his football pursuits. His parents moved the family to Murfreesboro when Otey was in the sixth grade and later got him into Blackman High School, which had a track record of producing Division I football prospects.
But USC would be a far greater culture shock -- except Otey had no reservations. He had a larger plan in mind and the allure of playing for a program with the history and tradition of the Trojans was worth it to him.
He remembers being amazed to see the campus was right in the heart of the city, yet it also had its own identity and beauty. He liked the academic reputation and alumni network that could help shape his life after football. But he also liked that the Trojans were in major need of cornerbacks.
"After seeing the city lights, man, he kind of looked at me and I looked at him," his father Seneca Otey remembers. "He kind of told me, 'Dad, I think I can excel out here.'"
So it was almost a done deal.
"His biggest thing was his momma. His momma was real upset," Seneca says with a laugh as he recalls the trip. "... Everybdoy kind of knew he was going to come out there at the end of the official, so the coaches talked to his mother, trying to get her to see the bigger picture. 'This is USC, he's going to be taken care of out here, he's going to be fine.'"
It made for an interesting flight back to Tennessee, though, as his father recalls.
"She didn't speak to me," Seneca says with another chuckle. "I've never seen Adonis trying to convince his mama of something. … It kind of got real. She still didn't speak to me [the rest of the flight]."
Eventually, Otey was able to get his mother Candice Tompkins on board and convince her this is just something he had to do.
"She's cool now. She's excited about it now," his father says.
After all, if you ask Otey, he will explain that his mother is actually the main reason he's doing this.
'I'm the next one out of Columbia to make it big'
Columbia, Tenn., is less than an hour south of Nashville, but it seems lightyears from the noise and lights of Music City.
"It's small, not a lot going on, it's country too -- I'm not going to lie," Otey says back in May, describing his hometown. "It's one high school, everybody knows each other, it's all family and stuff like that. I actually enjoy the town."
Even after the family moved to Murfreesboro, about 50 miles away, they still returned to Columbia every Sunday to attend the family church.
The everybody-knows-each-other vibe in the town is endearing, but Columbia also has its issues, Otey says.
"My pops and my mom [moved me out] to give me a better life. Because they know kids down there, they're going to jail at my age and stuff like that. They wanted to get me out of there and give me an opportunity," he says.
The move to Murfreesboro may not seem like much, but it was far larger than anything Otey was used to. He refers to it as moving to a "big city."
Which gives some perspective on how big the move to LA this summer must have been.
"LA, it's an even bigger city. I wasn't worried about it, I was just focused on giving my mom and pops a better life and giving them an opportunity as well and my [eight] brothers and sisters," Otey says.
Again, he sees his college football career as an opportunity to make an impact on multiple levels.
When he was younger, he looked up to the local football success stories. Shaq Mason, an offensive lineman from Columbia, Tenn., was drafted in the fourth round by the New England Patriots in 2015. D'Montre Wade, a DB from Columbia who starred at Murray State, is now the Kansas City Chiefs. And Dont'a Hightower, the Patriots' outside linebacker, is from nearby Lewisburg, Tenn.
"Not a lot of people make it out [of Columbia], so when they see me making it I want to give them the [motivation] that they can make it too. I want them to look up to me and say, 'I can do the same thing Adonis did,'" Otey says soon before leaving Tennessee for USC earlier this summer. "... Now I'm the next one out of Columbia to make it big."
But even more than inspiring the next wave of football players from the area, Otey says he's chasing opportunity not just for himself but for his family.
When he was trying to convince his mother that he needed to move across the country to USC, it was with her in mind.
"I just want to make it to the NFL, top five pick and then feed my family. I just want to buy my momma her first house," he says. "I've never lived in a house -- I've always lived in an apartment, project home or something like that. So I just want to get that opportunity for her to get whatever she wants.
"I think about it all the time, that's why I go so hard and I feel if somebody's in my way then they're stopping me from giving her what she wants and she needs. … That's how I've been my whole life, and now that I've got the opportunity I can't fail."
Adjusting to college football
Otey's introduction to college football came this month as he went head-to-head with one of the deepest receiving corps in college football every day.
He had some moments in camp, but he also had his struggles and fell behind USC's other young cornerbacks in the competition for roles this month.
"Right now, I'd have to say that the game's a little fast right now for him. But he's doing fine. There's just guys in front of him," DBs coach Greg Burns said this week.
Sophomore Olaijah Griffin, redshirt freshman Isaac Taylor-Stuart and freshman Chris Steele are the three competing for playing time at those two corner spots, with redshirt sophomore nickel Greg Johnson also an option if needed.
Otey would be behind those guys, but understanding the drive and motivation he plays with it's likely been a positive learning experience this last month.
"I think it's more mental -- calm down, you're in college, you're going against grown guys. Trying to get that high school out of him, being the most talented on the field," his father says last weekend.
"You take a kid, he's been in high school he's normally the best on the team, he's not used to playing with 11 guys on the field that can play."
Otey was indeed at star for Blackman High School -- so much so that even though colleges were recruiting him as a cornerback he would play mostly quarterback and receiver as a senior because he was the team's best playmaker.
The first play on his senior season highlight reel shows him taking a snap and running straight up the gut 64 yards for a touchdown, blazing through the defense before it had time to react.
Blackman coach Kit Hartsfield recalls another play, meanwhile.
"Against Oakland, our rivals, they won the state championship … and put several players in Division I. He was at wildcat quarterback and we ran outside zone to the right and he took it 80 yards to the house," he says. "And coming out in the second half when we needed a big play and it was just kind of like, wow, he's one of the alphas on this field, no question."
According to Blackman's MaxPreps stats, Otey only attempted 14 passes during his work as QB but he rushed for 667 yards and 8 touchdowns on 10.3 yards per carry and averaged an absurd 29.2 yards per catch with 13 receptions for 380 yards and 5 TDs.
"That was the first thing coach Burns said, 'We see you're just very fast.' My 40 time, I probably run like a 4.5, but on the field I run like a 4.3 because I just run past everybody," Otey says.
"I run like someone's chasing me or like I stole something. I'm just outrunning everybody. I get a different speed when I'm on the field. I don't know how, but I just do."
Some schools recruiting him even suggested he could play both ways. Mississippi State made that pitch as it tried to sway him late in the process. Ole Miss, Louisville and Arkansas also mentioned the possibility of him playing on offense.
He was committed to the Razorbacks from last August until he flipped to USC just before National Signing Day in February. That phone call wasn't easy, but when it came time, he didn't have any doubts he was making the right decision.
"That was real tough right there because they've been riding with us forever. That was the hardest thing, it really was," Seneca Otey says. "Of course I made him do it. I made him man up and him tell them. They understood. I mean, come on -- California, Arkansas, even with the relationships that had been built, a top institution like USC, the [impact] that would bring on a resume. So they kind of understood."
Mississippi State and Ole Miss continued to push for him to take a late official visit in the leadup to National Signing Day, but it wasn't going to happen. Soon after his USC visit, Trojans coach Clay Helton, Burns and outside linebackers coach Joe DeForest, who was the first to reach out to Otey soon after the early signing period, came to visit him and his family in Tennessee.
This recruiting process had started for Otey the winter of his freshman year with an offer from Tennessee, and now he had peace with his final decision.
"Once I had it over with I was so relieved. It was like a whole weight lifted off my back," he says.
In their meetings, like the other schools impressed with Otey's versatility, Helton referenced former do-it-all star Adoree' Jackson in talking with Otey, and the freshman says he'd like to get involved in returning kicks or maybe even earning some snaps on offense eventually.
But first, this summer has showed he still has a lot of room to develop at cornerback.
Hartsfield, his high school coach, says adjusting to those freshman struggles will be the biggest challenge for Otey, who was always hard on himself after a mistake. But he thinks his mentality will drive him to embrace the lessons learned and grow quickly from them.
"There's a few things that make Adonis who he is. No. 1, he's a competitor. He rises to any challenge and occasion, loves to compete in everything he does. He hates losing more than he likes winning," Hartsfield says.
"What he's going to have to learn at that level is just the bumps and bruises and not being successful every play and just being able to get past a bad play and move on to the next one because you play against great people, everyone's elite at that level. … I think his biggest strength going in is just his maturity and understanding you've got to compete and you get what you earn. And he's ready for that challenge."
'USC Next Up' series archives
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