The football recruiting trail only feels like a 300-pound lineman on your back.
Especially if you’re a Colorado kid.
As part of Cole LaCrue’s high school legacy at Broomfield, the early graduate is hoping to further prove that the Centennial State should be more than an afterthought for top colleges.
“We do have D-I kids who should be going to bigger places, but people don’t acknowledge us because we’re from Colorado,” LaCrue said after the season. “But it’s good to see this recruiting class. I think it’s one of the biggest recruiting classes in state history with talent.”
Heading to Wisconsin next month, the Daily Camera offensive player of the year said he has more to prove on the football scene. There’s only a little bit of time to reflect.
During a photo shoot for this award last week, the senior sat on a bench inside the place he garnered much of the state’s and nation’s attention this fall — Elizabeth Kennedy Stadium —and chatted with Fairview’s Zach Lewis, the Camera’s defensive player of the year.
What makes a pop song unfortunately also often makes a recruiting story, they tell.
Stop them if you’ve heard this one before: A coach will say how much they love you. How much they want you. Only to never call back.
“Sometimes it sucks,” LaCrue admitted.
Committing to Wisconsin earlier in November, even the eventual CHSAA Class 4A player of the year said he had to sweat out the ugly side of college athletics.
In his case, Jim Leonhard, who took over the Badgers program in the middle of the season and was the one to recruit LaCrue, was not brought back by the school on Nov. 27.
That was six days before the Eagles’ 4A title game.
An anxious LaCrue said he texted a few other coaches in worry his spot with the Badgers could be gone. Fortunately, he said, the new staff under Luke Fickell reaffirmed their commitment to him two days later.
“It makes me smile that another coach was willing to give me an opportunity,” LaCrue said.
Five days after their endorsement, Fickell’s former passing game coordinator at Cincinnati, Mike Brown, who is now on staff at Wisconsin, went to watch LaCrue at Empower Field at Mile High. In Broomfield’s 24-14 win over Loveland that day, LaCrue rushed for two touchdowns, giving him 46 (26 passing, 20 rushing) on the year.
Fickell later told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that Brown’s assessment of LaCrue was that he was a “leader” and a “winner”. Two words that have been synonymous with LaCrue since he took over as the Broomfield quarterback.
“The thing that he has brought from Day 1 is some energy, a spark and a leadership from the quarterback position,” Broomfield coach Blair Hubbard said when LaCrue picked Wisconsin on live TV Nov. 7. “It’s not an overbearing thing, it’s a thing where the guys naturally follow him. We saw that from the very first game he stepped on the field against Monarch his sophomore year.”
LaCrue wasn’t shy about his state title ambitions throughout the year, often saying he wanted to do it while playing with his younger brother Ty. He wanted it in memory of his late father Joe, who died in 2020 due to complications from the coronavirus.
And after winning a baseball title in the summer, he led the Eagles every step of the way in the fall.
LaCrue finished the season with 2,647 yards through the air and another 808 on the ground.
In the state semifinals against Erie, led by Longmont Times-Call player of the year Blake Barnett, he rushed for four TDs in the second half in a comeback 36-32 victory.
Following the championship win a week later, he and his brother had a moment together near where the spot they went to Broncos games with their father. They later celebrated at Joe’s favorite restaurant, Pasta Jay’s, a place where the two brothers would play paper football at the table growing up. The winner would face Dad.
All of it felt like a dream, LaCrue said.
“Now to have everything come to fruition, the TV, the spotlight, the Wisconsin fans telling me to come here and giving me love, I think it shows the dedication and what hard work has done,” he said.
LaCrue made it official with Wisconsin at National Signing Day Wednesday.