POCATELLO — JonRyheem Peoples was in a daze when he got the phone call he'd been waiting for.
It was early Sunday morning, just over 12 hours after the conclusion of the NFL Draft. Peoples was barely awake and unable to separate dream from reality.
Peoples' agent called to tell him the good news: Peoples was getting his shot at the NFL. The New Orleans Saints invited the former Idaho State University defensive tackle to their rookie minicamp for a chance to earn a spot on the team's 90-man offseason roster.
“I literally thought it was a dream,” Peoples said Tuesday at Holt Arena.
Peoples, 23, was the third former Bengal to get an NFL call last weekend, joining offensive lineman Skyler Phillips, 22, and linebacker Mario Jenkins, 23. ISU hadn't had more than one player get at least an NFL tryout since 2012, and 1975 was the last time three Bengals were granted NFL opportunities, according to past ISU football media guides.
While Peoples is fighting for a job with the Saints, Jenkins will be doing the same with the Kansas City Chiefs. Jenkins and Peoples both went undrafted, but earned invites to rookie minicamps, which are uncontracted and unsalaried tryouts with other first-year players and undrafted free agents vying for a roster spot.
Phillips also went undrafted, but was signed to a free-agent contract by the Seattle Seahawks, guaranteeing him a spot on the team until rosters are cut from 90 players to 53 following the preseason schedule.
Since the three players graduated from Idaho State after the fall semester, they've been training in various locations with hopes of continuing their football careers. Phillips was the most lauded of the three, earning spots on five FCS All-America teams, an invite to the 2018 Reese's Senior Bowl in Mobile, Alabama, and the right to work out at the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis. He was projected as a late-round draft selection, but a history of concussions lowered his draft stock.
With about 20 picks remaining in the seventh and final round of the NFL Draft on Saturday, Phillips received a phone call from a member of the Seahawks coaching staff.
“I was just sitting there kind of monitoring the draft, and then my phone rang with a call from Washington,” Phillips said by phone Tuesday from his hometown Eugene, Oregon. “I find out that they obviously needed offensive linemen to try to fill some of those holes in the line, and they thought I had a pretty good chance of coming in and making the roster, so they're going to give me a shot. That was pretty incredible.”
While Phillips was frustrated by his undrafted status, he's overcome plenty of negative feedback throughout his football career.
Phillips was committed to play at Oregon State out of high school, but the program pulled its scholarship offer at the last minute, forcing Phillips to scramble to find a new future. He landed with the Bengals — a team with a recent history of losing and sparse NFL prospects.
“I've had to earn respect my entire life,” Phillips said. “Going undrafted is just another one of those instances where I'll just have to keep proving my worth and show people that I'm not what they think I am.”
Phillips flies to Seattle on Thursday for the Seahawks' rookie minicamp.
On Friday, Jenkins heads to the Chiefs rookie tryout, where he'll try to cash in on an NFL dream years in the making.
Like Phillips, Jenkins watched the draft hopefully, but did not get picked up until after the final selections were made.
Jenkins, who attended Nampa's Columbia High, was a standout for the Bengals' defense and overcame an ACL injury in 2015. He wasn't invited to the postseason camps and tryouts like Phillips was, but his statistics — combined with a quick eye test — pointed to Jenkins being at least worthy of an NFL flyer.
Jenkins spent the past few months training at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona and returned to Pocatello for a pro day workout with Phillips and Peoples in early April. He was confident he'd get at least a tryout with an NFL squad, but his nerves were active until word was official.
“I knew with my hard work and dedication toward the sport, I knew I was going to go somewhere, regardless,” Jenkins said by phone Tuesday from Arizona. “But you never know. I wasn't going to give up.”
Once Jenkins' agent called with the Chiefs' invitation, Jenkins' emotions took over.
“The emotions were crazy. I cried,” Jenkins said. “Kind of a life-changer.”
For Peoples, a tryout with the Saints punctuates his life turnaround.
A multisport star at Rigby High, Peoples went to BYU on a football scholarship out of high school. But Peoples' scholarship was stripped before he played a game for the Cougars because of an admitted sub-par work ethic and a GPA that Peoples said slipped to 0.8. He transferred to Idaho State for a second chance in football and what was ultimately an awakening.
Peoples raised his GPA enough to earn two Big Sky Conference All-Academic honors and, along with Phillips and former ISU kicker Zak Johnson, was recognized by the National Football Foundation Hampshire Honor Society for maintaining a cumulative 3.2 GPA throughout his college football career.
“I've been through so many ups and downs, good choices, bad choices,” Peoples said. “To really, finally just grow up and start maturing and figuring out what I really want in life and humbling myself, it really took me having nothing and almost losing everything to find out what my real values are, who I am as a person, what I want to be and what I want a life to be.”
New Orleans is already home to Blackfoot native and ISU alumnus Josh Hill, as well as Pocatello native, Highland High graduate and Peoples' former BYU teammate Taysom Hill. Peoples said he contacted Josh Hill on Instagram to seek advice for his tryout, which Peoples leaves for May 10.
“He was just like, 'Man, just be competitive,'” Peoples said. “'Make sure you don't leave here without them remembering who you are.'”
Coming from little Idaho State, tucked away in the Football Championship Subdivision, off the radar of most of the college football world, the Bengals' trio hopes to continue beating the odds.
“No matter where you're at or what college you're at, you can also be successful no matter what,” Jenkins said. “If you put in the time and the effort to be great, they're going to find you no matter what.”