When Damon West talks, college football teams listen

Dabo Swinney has helped launch a lot of careers in the past decade, but none have come from the depths as that of a 5-foot-10 quarterback from Texas.

Damon West was nervous that day in Houston when he hit Swinney with his own 30-second recruiting pitch. It already had fallen flat with six or seven other college football coaches. West wasn’t trying to land a college scholarship. He was hoping he could sell the Clemson coach on letting him speak to this team.