On NFL draft day, Dylan Collie became a football prophet, a real sage for the age.
Three years ago, Collie, a senior BYU receiver, had just finished his college career catching balls from freshman starter Zach Wilson. He made a bold prediction back then that today is annexed into Wilson lore.
Wilson is expected to be the highest BYU quarterback ever drafted. Steve Young was No. 1 but in the supplemental draft back in the early ’80s.
“I believe Zach Wilson will become one of the all-time great quarterbacks in BYU history,” said Collie.
Eyebrows raised. There were side looks.
Collie had witnessed enough — even if the freshman shared time with veteran Tanner Mangum.
Collie said it all privately during the 2018 season. He came out publicly after Wilson’s perfect 18-for-18 performance in the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl in Boise.
Why?
“To be honest with you, I really think from the first time I had the opportunity just to work out with Zach and grow with Zach, I could tell that there was something different just about his attitude, the way that he went about the effort,” Collie told the Deseret News this week. “He was so locked in.”
Collie is quick to downplay his own football abilities, even if he has legacy bloodlines. His father Scott and older brothers Zach and Austin played at BYU, with Austin playing almost 50 NFL games with Indianapolis and New England before concussions ended his career.
But Dylan Collie grew up around football with his siblings and his dad coaching elite receivers. Scott founded an elite training for youth receivers called ReceiverTech back in 2012.
Dylan currently works for an engineering firm, Rescale, based in Northern California, but lives and works in a Rescale office in Utah. He and his wife Savannah live in Lehi with their 15-month-old daughter named after his father, Little Scotty.
Elements of Wilson’s physical and mental makeup stood out to Dylan the first time he worked out with him the summer before the 2018 season. Wilson had graduated early from Corner Canyon and enrolled at BYU in the winter. That fact alone stood out about Wilson’s mindset and maturity at multitasking.
“We worked well together, simply because we had that in common,” said Collie, who transferred from Hawaii to BYU for his senior year. “We both took the mental side of things seriously. He had a great understanding of the game, and even at his age, he was thinking already at that next level.
“And then you add on top of that the physical tangibles, and the things that I didn’t have, things that maybe kept me out of the position that he’s now in. Not necessarily being a second pick in the draft but, you know, the way that the ball just kind of came out of his hands effortlessly, just that, at the ripe old age of 18.”
Reflecting back this week, Collie reemphasized his early impressions.
“There was something very, very different about Zach than any other quarterback that I’ve been around at that level,” he said.
“It was one of the things that you just kind of saw progress throughout the year,” Collie said of Wilson’s first college season. “When his number was called he came in and performed, right? It was as if he had been playing at that level for two or three years, and then you cap it off with a bowl game where it was genuinely just effortless for him. To come in and do the things that he did with the understanding mentally and physically, you could just tell right off the bat that he had it.”
In 2019, Wilson played with injuries. His play and BYU’s performances were up and down.
That year Wilson helped lead BYU to wins over USC and Tennessee but the Cougars were inconsistent. Wilson got injured midway through the season and freshman Baylor Romney came in and led the Cougars to wins over ranked Boise State and Utah State.
Jaren Hall, a gifted athlete, also made impressive starts as he struggled with concussion protocols.
There were some fans who argued either Hall or Romney should be given the reins in 2020.
But Collie’s words were out there, getting dissected and replayed and requoted. He went on local radio stations and would explain what he saw.
Wilson spent the offseason recovering from shoulder surgery and a broken hand. For the first time in his college career, he was healthy.
Then the COVID-19 season came. BYU’s athletic director re-created a schedule and BYU went 11-1, finished ranked No. 11 in the country, and Wilson set school records for pass efficiency and accuracy. His downfield and red-zone accuracy were among the best in college football. In some cases, historic on a national level.
This winter, Wilson’s stock skyrocketed. He came to the national scene out of seemingly nowhere, his game compared with those of Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence and Ohio State’s Justin Fields as the top QB talent in this draft.
And with that came scrutiny and criticism. Atop the blowback was BYU’s schedule that lacked a Power Five opponent.
Collie explains why that should not matter.
“It really isn’t about who he played against as much as it is, if you watched, his ball placement and the way he made the throws and where he actually put the ball. It didn’t matter who the defense was and it didn’t matter who the receiver was. I mean, there were throws that Zach made this year that could have been to the worst receiver in the world against the greatest cornerback of all time and he was giving the receivers their shot.”
“It is just the way he throws the ball,” said Collie
“It was unbelievable and spectacular and that’s why you see now, after these pro days, everyone tries to make that off-platform throw across the body. No one has actually been able to replicate it, and those who have tried those off-platform throws wonder why it hasn’t received as much attention as Wilson’s.
“Well, he (Wilson) did that throw, and then he put two times the difficulty on it. So, you can kind of see where he’s on another level that very, very few quarterbacks will ever get to when it comes to throwing the football.”
Collie has a pretty good record on predictions.
He predicted how good Jamaal Williams was when he set BYU rushing records and went on to make a splash with the Green Bay Packers. He also predicted how good Sione Takitaki was and he’s now with the Cleveland Browns.
A new one: His niece, daughter of brother Zach, is a freshman soccer player tearing it up in the Sacramento, California, area. Her name is Shea Collie. “She is phenomenal, I’m just sayin.’”