Patience isn’t often rewarded in football. Maybe a running back holds up for a second as a hole opens. Maybe a safety sits on a route instead of breaking on the ball. Kudos to them. Those are the outlying moments where restraint is rewarded in football, where waiting is seen as a positive.

Football coaches like to preach that players control their destiny. Want to get better? Work harder. Want more playing time? Spend more time with the playbook. Want to advance within a team? Manifest it.

No one has been preaching that philosophy in the 2021 recruiting cycle. For so long, good players found ways to get offers. Perhaps it wasn’t from their dream school, but they could often bank free college if the talent was there. The pandemic changed that. No more summer camps. No more visits. No more answers.

Most small schools cut scholarships. Or because some seniors were staying, didn’t know how many scholarships they could give.

High school coaches felt helpless. All their connections didn’t help much this year. They had to look at their hard-working players and, for a change, share with them the importance of patience.

“It has been frustrating for the kids. It’s been frustrating for the parents. And it’s frustrating for me because I don’t have answers for them,” Highland coach Gino Mariani said. “You want to have an answer for those kids and, for a lot of them, I don’t.”

But all that frustration turned into a sense of relief mixed with joy Wednesday as Mariani and others from Highland gathered in the school’s media center just after noon. Senior football standouts Easton Durham and Logan George sat at a long table and saw their patience rewarded.

Durham, who played everywhere for the Rams, will be heading to Carroll College (NAIA) in Montana to play wide receiver. George, a stud 6-foot-4, 238-pound defensive end, signed as a preferred walk-on with the Utah State Aggies of Logan, Utah, but will serve a two-year LDS mission before he gets on campus.

“I’ve realized I’m going to college now and that I have to flip a switch and change gears to get ready and prepare for that,” Durham said. “When I went up to Carroll, the culture was (great) and the coaching staff really accepted me. I could tell they wanted to push me.”

“It made everything 10 times more real. It’s exciting. I’m definitely ready to go play,” George said of his signing. “I just wrote down a list of things that were important to me, things that I needed and (Utah State) came to the top of the list.”

Over the last few months, there were few recruits on social media more than Durham.

He had highlight tapes on Twitter after every game. He made special clips to show off when he moved to wide receiver, or if he intercepted a pass on defense. He tagged practically the entire coaching staff of any school interested in him. And he sent dozens of emails and direct messages to prospective coaches, trying to catch their eye.

With few opportunities to pitch himself to a college coach, Durham went down every available avenue. And it paid off.

He chose Carroll College over fellow NAIA Frontier Conference member College of Idaho. He and his family fell in love with Helena, Montana, they were fond of the atmosphere around the football program and it helped that Carroll brought in a number of other Idaho prospects, including Blackfoot running back Teegan Thomas.

“It’s just dudes that I know have worked hard in the past and are coming from a football background,” Durham said of his new teammates. “Then the fact that they were texting me before I committed and were like, ‘Dude, we need you here. We have to play together.’ It hit my heart. I was like, ‘Alright, I have some dudes who I’m going up here with to go to war with.’”

And Durham wants to make sure he’s ready to compete with them in Helena.

A few weeks ago, Durham sat down with his dad and weight coach, Cade Ackley, to start discussing a regiment. They talked about goals and laid out the road map to achieve them, trying to get acclimated to Carroll before he even gets there.

For instance, Durham knows their weight program starts at 6 a.m. So he’s started waking up at 5:30 a.m., eating something quick, then getting a pump in before Highland’s first bell rings. Along with the acclimation, Durham wants to gain 25 pounds and bulk up to 180 pounds when he walks into Carroll, setting a goal to try and gain two pounds a week until he gets there.

Patience isn’t in the cards for Durham. When recruiting stalled, he bumped up his Twitter. When most kids are enjoying their last few months of high school, he’s at Gold’s Gym before the crack of dawn. Anything to get ahead.

“I’ve known in my mind and I’ve accepted that it’s going to be hard the whole time,” he said. “In my mind, I know I’m a good football player, but I know I can be better. It helps me knowing someone will be pushing me not to just be mediocre or average.”

George had options on where he would play college football. A lot of that stemmed from what he did during the summer. Knowing a few camps were pushed forward over the summer, like the R.A.R.E Showcase and OFFA camps, George attended them and balled out.

If there were questions if he had DI-caliber skills, those were quickly put to bed.

“I was doing super well. The guys that I was even with the year before, I just knew, in a sense, that I could beat those guys when I needed to,” George said. “I trained every day. I was more in-shape than everyone else and I had better technique.”

Before his senior season even began, Idaho State handed the local kid an offer. College of Idaho and the University of San Diego jumped in towards the end of the year. Then Southern Utah and Utah State both offered George in late January.

A lot of George’s college decision-making had to come within the last few weeks before signing day — including whether he wanted to go on a mission or not.

“I didn’t think I was going to be going on a mission, actually. I thought it would be in my best interest, so I did,” George said. “The more I thought about it, the more I thought, ‘This is what I want to do.’”

Almost every school on George’s offer list welcomes a handful of returned missionaries each year, so that didn’t trim the list much. So with the Feb. 3 signing day approaching, George penned a list of things important to him. At the top were the coaching staff and location.

Among every place, George couldn’t get over the idea of going to school and playing football in Logan. Despite the fact Idaho State and Southern Utah were offering full scholarships compared to just a preferred walk-on badge from the Mountain West school, George wanted to be an Aggie.

“It’s bigger, yeah. But had Southern Utah or Idaho State been in that Logan area, then I would have gone there,” George said. “I know I can play at that level and I’ll show everyone in a couple of years.”

Mariani is sure of that part.

“Logan, he is a tough block because, as a defensive end, he’s long, physical, tall and he’s got great speed and quickness. He’s a wrestler, so he understands balance and leverage. Those things are not easy to teach,” Mariani said. “When he goes, he’ll destroy you. If you’re not ready, he’ll put you on your back and be right in the quarterback’s lap.”