College football: SRJC lineman Dodji Dahoue carves path from Mali to Division I football

Dodji Dahoue is hard to miss on a football field.

At 6-foot-9, 290 pounds, the sophomore offensive tackle towers over his Santa Rosa Junior College teammates. But it’s when he puts that frame into motion that you really start to understand why the 19-year-old who grew up in Mali is attracting the attention of Division I college programs.

His naturally quick feet make him incredibly agile for someone his size. His height wasn’t always an advantage on the gridiron, but it is now that he’s added 60-plus pounds over the past year. He’s got the size, strength and speed required to play at the next level. Plus, he’s durable. He just played every offensive snap for SRJC this past season.

“You usually don’t get those three things together,” SRJC offensive line coach Todd Little said. “He can move for being 6-9, 290 pounds.”

But what’s really tantalizing about Dahoue as a prospect — and what makes his story so much more remarkable — is the fact he’s become so sought after despite having first played football two years ago. Even now, with his final SRJC season ending last weekend, Dahoue has played just 10 games total in his football career, and yet he will head into the offseason with multiple Division I programs interested in his talents.

Dahoue’s potential has set him up to follow in the footsteps of other great SRJC linemen, like Luke Haggard at Indiana or Wes Call at Washington, in suiting up for a big-time college program.

“He ranks up there with any of those guys,” SRJC head coach Lenny Wagner said. “And the fact that this is his first year playing football and to see how far he’s coming in one year, you can’t help but think, ‘Jeeze, where is this guy going to be three or four years from now?’ He might be an NFL guy.”

Dahoue was born in France but spent most of his life in Sikasso and Bamako, the two largest cities in Mali.

His mom is French and works for the Belgian government as an engineer, while his dad owns a company in the West African country of Togo. Dahoue said outside of some pick-up soccer in the street, he never played sports growing up.

After graduating high school in Bamako at 16, Dahoue wanted to study engineering in the United States. He picked SRJC because of the school’s reputable engineering track and because he had some familiarity with the region from a family vacation to the Bay Area when he was 10.

He spent his first year at SRJC as a full-time student, often getting asked if he was on the basketball team. He even actually joined a basketball class but quickly found out he didn’t have the coordination for it.

“I couldn’t dribble, I couldn’t shoot, I couldn’t dunk,” he said. “I was not athletic at all. I had never worked on it, never thought I really wanted to or needed to.”

He also knew nothing about American football. He admitted that when he attended his first SRJC game as a fan, he sat on the opposing sideline and cheered on the wrong team.

Despite all of that, SRJC players and coaches started to see what Division I college coaches are seeing now: potential.

After a brief recruitment, Dahoue came out to join the team for the 2022 season. He practiced as a tight end and redshirted his first season as he learned the basics of the game, but it became clear that if he wanted a future in the sport, it would be at a different position.

During a weightlifting session in the offseason, defensive coordinator Dante DePaola delivered the harsh truth that Dahoue needed to hear.

“He said, ‘You are not a receiving threat at all for our defense,’” recalled Dahoue. “I was like, ‘Damn. That hurt!’ But I had to suck it up. He said it for a good reason.”

Dahoue made the switch to offensive tackle in the spring — and it didn’t take long to see the move was the right call.

Shortly after the change, he attended a prospect camp at Cal and was named the Offensive line MVP after going up against other more experienced junior college players and Division I transfers.

That recognition gave him a burst of confidence and finally opened his eyes to the potential everyone else saw in him.

Since then, he’s been the hardest and most committed worker in the weight room and at practices, according to his coaches and teammates. He put on 65 pounds over the past year and spent his down time watching film breakdowns of NFL offensive linemen to learn more about the game. His coaches said he soaks up new information like a sponge.

“I just fell in love with the hard work,” he said. “If you have a goal, it’s really simple: It’s not going to happen on its own. ‘I want to go Division I’ — well, it’s not just going to happen. You’re going to have to work hard for it. As long as you have that mindset, everything just gets easier.”

Dahoue’s coaches use several different analogies to describe him: He’s an unpolished muscle car, a piece of clay, a fledgling bird. But even as recently as this preseason they said he looked like “an Octopus falling out of a tree” as he adjusted to his new position.

“Hands were all over the place, he wasn’t getting them in line and using them in a way physics would help him,” said Little, who works with Dahoue daily. “But he cleaned all that up so fast because he’s so coachable.”

“I wouldn’t have said last year that he was going to be our starting tackle,” Little added. “He takes coaching well, works his ass off and takes getting better very seriously.”

SRJC sophomore offensive lineman Jonah Miller also raves about Dahoue’s potential and work ethic, which means a lot considering Miller’s background. At 6-foot-8, 285 pounds, Miller was a consensus four-star recruit when he committed to Oregon (he transferred to SRJC in 2022 after Oregon brought in a new coaching staff). As a highly touted player for a Power Five program, Miller has seen firsthand what it takes to be a Division I lineman and believes Dahoue has all the potential to do the same.

“For the short time that Dodji has been seeing the game of football, it’s been playing out slower for him than anyone at this stage should be,” Miller said. “Dodji is super explosive and when he’s able to focus that explosiveness, he’s D1. He’s elite.”

Dahoue, who was just named a First-Team All-NorCal offensive lineman this week, will graduate from SRJC this winter with a 3.73 GPA and two years of Division I eligibility left.

He currently holds Division I scholarship offers from Eastern Michigan and Idaho State, which both made the offers before SRJC’s season was over. He’s also getting interest from Boise State, UC Davis and Utah State, among several other Division I programs.

Dahoue said he never needed football to get him through life, but now that this opportunity is in front of him, he doesn’t plan on wasting it.

“Just so grateful to even have one (offer),” he said. “I mean, so grateful that anyone would believe in me, you know?”

You can reach Staff Writer Gus Morris at 707-304-9372 or gus.morris@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @JustGusPD.