David Onyemata:
Brian Dobie’s
Greatest Individual
Success
By Scott Taylor, Photos by Jeff Miller and Jason Halstead
David Onyemata is in now playing
around in the rarified air of the
National Football League. In fact,
after holding his own “pro day” at
the University of Manitoba for more
than 20 NFL scouts, Brian Dobie’s
most successful “project” is now being
touted as a late second-round or early
third-round NFL draft pick.
It’s been an incredible season for
Onyemata. Of course, it’s been an
incredible five-year journey. A Nigerian
immigrant who never played a down
of Canadian football when he knocked
on University of Manitoba Bisons head
coach Brian Dobie’s office door in 2011,
Onyemata was named the 2015 winner
of the J. P. Metras Trophy, awarded
annually to the Outstanding Down
Lineman in the CIS.
He became the first Bisons’ lineman
to win the Metras Trophy since Israel
Idonije won it in 2002. Idonije went
on to have a 10-year career in the
National Football League. Onyemata
is the fourth Bisons player to win the
award. Along with Idonije, the Metras
Trophy was also won
by Bart Evans in 1974
and Jason Rauhaus
in 1991. Rauhaus
went on to play in
the NCAA’s East West
Shrine Game while Evans played six
seasons in the CFL with Montreal,
Hamilton and Winnipeg. Talk about
good company.
However, along with his Metras
Trophy, Onyemata was also named to
the 2015 CIS First All-Canadian Team.
And no wonder. He recorded 50 tackles,
7.5 tackles for a loss and five sacks. Like
Rauhaus, he too, played in the EastWest Shrine Game—a showcase event
for NFL talent evaluators—on Jan. 23,
2016, in St. Petersburg, Fla.
He’s now signed with Tom Brady’s
agent, Carter Chow, and up until his
NFL pro day – where he impressed
all of those National Football League
scouts – he had been working out
at Exos football training facility in
California. He’s played football for
five seasons and he’s now up with the
greatest Canadian players of all time.
In fact, University of Manitoba
Bisons head coach Brian Dobie
believes Onyemata could be “The Next
One.” First, Idonije made it to the NFL
and now Dobie believes Onyemata, a
6-foot-5, 310-pound giant of an athlete,
could be next.
“We feel David is a can’t-miss CFL
player who has a very legitimate
chance to be a solid NFL player,” said
Dobie with a straight face. “His offseason program is off the charts.
“He has worked so hard on the field
to learn the game. For a couple of
years he was getting by on size and
power and his athleticism and I mean
athleticism. This guy is an athlete. Yeah,
he’s huge and powerful, but he’s also an
athlete. He is amazingly quick and he
has NFL feet. Now he just needs to take
a more cerebral approach to the game
and he’s doing that.”
Dobie will never forget the day
Onyemata showed up at his office door.
It was as if God himself had sent Dobie
the official “Heir to Izzy.”
“There was a knock on my door and
when I opened it, I saw this 6-foot5, 320-pound monster standing in
front of me and immediately I said,
‘I hope you’re a football player,’”
Dobie laughed. “I can’t tell you how
heartbroken I was when he said, ‘I’ve
never played football in my life.’ But
then he said he wanted to learn and
that intrigued me.”
It’s amazing how th [