Provo • For the longest time, Tommy Prassas’ college football hopes hung in the balance of overflowed inboxes.
Throughout his junior year of high school, Prassas’ father, Danny, would gather up his son’s highlights, stats and measurables and email them out to coaches he thought should be recruiting his player, but somehow weren’t.
Prassas led the Phoenix area in interceptions as a sophomore. Many of his teammates were heading off to the brand name schools — Oregon, Ohio State, Washington — but Prassas was relegated to drumming up his own business and hoping one of those emails would actually get opened.
“I knew I could play Power Four football,” Prassas said. “I felt like I was just as good as those guys. He’d email all the schools he thought I could play at. ... I don’t know what was happening.”
Almost two years later, there is no questioning Prassas’ place in college football anymore.
In his first Big 12 game, Prassas ignited BYU’s defensive onslaught that toppled No. 13 Kansas State with a 30-yard scoop and score. He’s steadily become one of the Cougars’ more trusted playmakers as a true freshman. And to think, Prassas only got one Big 12 offer out of high school. He was so eager to be recognized, he committed just days after BYU defensive coordinator Jay Hill gave him a chance.
Now he’s helping BYU author its own, equally improbable, Power Four run this year.
“I’m glad coach found me in the haystack,” Prassas said.
A haystack, though, would be minimizing it. Prassas’ BYU offer came more from happenstance than anything else.
Going into his senior season, Prassas trekked all over the country going to camps as the emails were lost in spam folders.
He had offers from some Group of Five schools, like Air Force and Bowling Green. In the FC ranks, South Dakota State was also interested. But Prassas kept looking around and thought he could go somewhere bigger.
He flew out to Texas to participate in TCU’s megacamp and hit Orlando for the Under Armour circuit. He drove out to Arizona and Arizona State, his two local schools, and tried to get on their radar. He was a top-50 prospect in the state, but they turned him away.
“I don’t know. I had a really good sophomore year. Led the region in picks. But they didn’t really throw against me my last two years,” Prassas said. “I only had one pick each of my last two years. Maybe that was the reason.”
(BYU athletics) BYU DB Tommy Prassas walks into LaVell Edwards Stadium before playing No. 13 Kansas State.
When nothing worked, his defensive backs coach pushed him to fly out to Utah to try BYU and the Utes’ summer showcase.
Prassas hadn’t considered the Cougars to that point, but he had some ties to the area. He went to the same high school as Micah Harper, BYU’s current starting safety and Harper’s father, Kenny Harper, coached Prassas’ position group at Basha High in Chandler, Ariz.
“I had some family here in Salt Lake,” Prassas said. “We stayed with them.”
What was the harm in giving it a shot?
By the end of camp, Hill went up to Prassas, dressed in his Basha weight-lifting shirt, and offered him on the spot. A week later, Prassas was committed.
“I was flying blind,” Prassas said of his recruitment. “Just feeling like this could be a good opportunity for me.”
Harper has seized that opportunity quickly.
Prassas enrolled early and immediately started taking first-team reps in spring practice. It translated to a primary backup spot to start the season and he’s played alongside Tanner Wall in all four of the opening games this year.
“Tommy Prassas ... in the safety group has done a phenomenal job,” Hill said in August.
And when he finally had his first real opportunity to make a play, he picked up a fumble against Kansas State and ran it in for a 30-yard touchdown. It gave BYU its first lead and started a series of three turnovers that gifted the Cougars their biggest Big 12 win to date. BYU danced to 4-0, in the heart of the league race, and is ranked No. 22 in the country.
“We know that Tommy is going to be an instrumental part of this defense for years to come,” defensive end Tyler Batty said, who was right behind Prassas as he walked into the end zone.
“So him making plays like that, no surprise to us, right? We were just stoked he was able to show people that tonight.”
For Prassas, his once unsure Power Four future is set. And now he can focus on helping BYU press its current Big 12 run forward — one that may be just as unlikely as his.
