Top recruits following their faith and putting college on hold
Even before his football recruitment took off, Weston Port knew he wanted to serve a two-year Mormon mission.
He saw his two older sisters do it and witnessed how it changed their lives. Since middle school, the San Juan Capistrano (Calif.) San Juan Hills four-star linebacker wanted it for his life as well.
As recruiting picked up and he eventually chose UCLA, Port never swayed from that decision even if it meant the challenge of putting his football future on hold for two years, stopping that momentum of excelling in high school and then heading to Westwood to continue his football journey.
Port will do his mission in Spain and then return in either December 2026 or January 2027 to play for the Bruins.
“It definitely is a sacrifice no matter if I’m a football player or I have other things going on in my life, it’s a sacrifice,” Port said. “There will be opportunities for me to work out, we get an hour in the morning. It’s not going to be like what I have here and used to over the last few years and playing football. It is a sacrifice on that part.
“But for me something I’ve really thought about is I’ll be better when I get back. I’ll return with a greater understanding of myself, greater leadership capabilities, work habits, a knowledge of what it takes to be successful. There will be some sacrifices but I’ll return more mature and better set up for success.”
One of the many reasons UCLA won out in Port’s recruitment was because the coaching staff was so accepting of his decision to step away for two years to serve his church. Without naming which schools, Port said not every coaching staff was so supportive.
“That was a cool thing especially at UCLA how supportive they were about the mission,” Port said. “It was a huge part of why I chose to go to UCLA was because they said, ‘Look, this is going to be great for you as a human being in general. You’re going to return older, more mature.’ So the way they thought it was going to help me as a human being, that was big for me that UCLA prioritized me and not just this transactional relationship.
“There were coaches reaching out to me to set up a call and I told them I was going on a mission and they said, ‘What? Why?’ It was 100 percent a turn off for a lot of schools.”
Five-star quarterback Ryder Lyons, who will also do a mission after high school although he believes it will be a one-year service, said out of the 40 or so schools that have offered him, only one coach seemed to be soured on the idea.
Lyons said: “Only one coach was like, ‘OK, we’re not going to recruit you,’ of 40 schools. That’s their choice. Coaches have been pretty cool about it. A lot of them just look at me as a 2027 (prospect) which is weird to me because I’m in this class and I know all these quarterbacks. That part has been weird. Some schools said if you commit we won’t take a 26 and some have said we’re going to take a ’26 and a ’27. That has been weird.”
Lyons’ brother, Walker, served his mission and now plays at USC, a big reason why the Trojans are so high in the five-star quarterback’s top choices as well. Oregon, BYU, Michigan, Ohio State and Ole Miss round out his favorites.
For a quarterback, especially one of Lyons’ caliber, the mission decision could be tricky. There is a momentum to playing that position, to training at an elite level, to staying on top of your game because NFL millions are a very real possibility.
It is something the Folsom, Calif., star quarterback has considered. But there is a bigger consideration for him as well.
“It is my faith,” Lyons said. “I also look at it like my Heavenly Father Jesus Christ has blessed me in so many ways. For me to go and sacrifice 12 months, I’m missing a lot, so for me to go sacrifice is just me showing my faith.”
For Port, the four-star who’s almost a throwback to those hard-hitting, neckroll-wearing linebackers of the 1980s, his recruitment was informed and helped by how coaches reacted to his news about taking a mission.
Were they in it for them or did they truly want what was best for him? That mattered.
“From an early age, I’ve always known that I want to serve a mission,” Port said. “In my life, I knew early on what my priorities were and what I wanted to focus on and that’s the gospel.
“Having gone through the whole recruiting process, it was a cool experience to see who really cared about my growth. That was a decision I made before I even knew I was good at football. By eighth grade, I knew that was a goal I had. Both of my older sisters went and served and I got to see how that changed their lives for the better and made me want to go.”
