The British are coming: NFL Academy starting to turn UK talent into college prospects

LONDON (AP) — Rafael Varona Blakstad had only asked for directions on campus. The guy wearing NFL Academy gear surprised the London native with his answer.

“He said ‘Have you ever played football?’ in the most American accent I’ve ever heard. I was kind of hooked from there,” said Varona Blakstad, who left a prominent rugby club to become a wide receiver.

The teenager and his mom had been visiting Loughborough University, where the NFL Academy is based. The guy they bumped into was Lamonte Winston, head of the academy.

Germans and Swedes typically comprise most of the top European prospects for American college football, but the U.K. talent is gaining momentum.

The NFL academy, which opened in 2019, has been sharpening its local recruitment and the results are starting to show with several recent graduates now playing for Power Four conference schools.

“The British kids are getting there,” Winston said. “Soccer and rugby are king. It's not the norm over here for kids to play multiple sports. You play one sport — that’s it."

That's why it was such a surprise when Wales rugby star Louis Rees-Zammit switched to American football and joined the NFL's international player pathway program.

The 23-year-old Rees-Zammit was signed by the Kansas City Chiefs but didn't make their 53-man roster. He then joined the Jacksonville Jaguars to be on the team's practice squad as a wide receiver. The Jags come to London this week and play the Chicago Bears on Sunday.

The academy uses social media and personal networks to recruit mostly Europeans ages 16 to 19. They tapped into the Rees-Zammit connection, too, having the former rugby star call Varona Blakstad when the teenager was deciding to leave Saracens rugby academy.

“He's achieved everything a youngster would want to in rugby and the fact that he was making a change over to American football really meant a lot to me,” the 19-year-old Varona Blakstad said.

Varona Blakstad was also an England academy player, meaning he was on track to play for his country some day.

He hopes that by switching now, he'll have a chance at a Division I scholarship. He's 6-foot-5 and was timed at 4.6 in the 40-yard dash.

Varona Blakstad didn't need height or speed, though, for his biggest play Tuesday when the academy played U.S. high school De La Salle at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. The academy lost 31-9 but Varona Blakstad gave home fans a boost when he got into the end zone on the final play of the game and caught a tipped pass.

“I just couldn't believe it. I was like ‘this is really happening.’ I just started playing the sport less than two months ago and now I've just caught my first touchdown at Tottenham stadium," he said.

Academy graduate Timi Oke went from south London to Northwestern despite the cornerback taking up football at age 18. Other English talents are offensive tackles Daniel Akinkunmi (Oklahoma) and Akram Elnagmi (Pitt commit), as well as Mississippi State tight end Seydou Traore.

British fans like the NFL, which has played regular-season games in London since 2007, but there are few options for kids who want to play tackle football.

“The U.K. probably should be No. 1 in terms of the amount of athletes coming out of there,” said Brandon Collier, who runs Germany-based PPI Recruits. “There’s a lot of talent there.”

Indeed, Travis Clayton went from lower-tier English rugby to being selected by the Buffalo Bills in the seventh round of this year’s NFL draft as offensive tackle prospect.

British-born players who have been successful in the NFL like Osi Umenyiora typically had moved to the United States for high school first.

Across the U.K. there are few clubs that offer tackle football for teenagers, and usually not 11-vs-11.

Collier said his upcoming camp in Germany in conjunction with 24/7 Sports has no British kids registered.

“It happened last year as well. We had 24/7 here and literally 20-something kids went Division I from this camp and we had no kids from the UK,” said Collier, who no longer holds camps in England due to lack of local interest.

Varona Blakstad would sometimes go to a park to run routes and catch passes with friends, but that was it.

“I never realized it was something you could play in England,” he said.

Winston, who previously worked as player development director for the Kansas City Chiefs, said creating a junior academy would be a logical next step.

“To play tackle football, you have to have places for kids to develop in tackle football — you just do,” he said. "We’d love to have a junior academy here at our NFL academy.”

The growing popularity of flag football is going to create demand, he said, and it would also be a good landing spot for younger teenagers who miss the cut at elite rugby or soccer clubs.

Varona Blakstad's case is a bit different in that he was already at Saracens, one of the country's best rugby clubs. Winston said they have a good relationship with Saracens.

“We don’t poach. We don’t need to do that,” he said.

Varona Blakstad has one year at the academy to impress scouts. That amounts to a handful of games followed by summer competition at U.S. camps.

“It’s surreal and it’s an amazing opportunity.”

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De La Salle High School coach and former NFL running back Maurice Jones-Drew shakes hands after a football game between the NFL Academy team and De La Salle High School in London, Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

NFL Academy player Rafael Varona Blackstad, wears a helmet during a football game between the NFL Academy team and De La Salle High School, Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024, in London. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

NFL Academy player Rafael Varona Blackstad, left, kicks a ball during a football game between the NFL Academy team and De La Salle High School, Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024, in London. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

NFL Academy player Rafael Varona Blackstad, second left, poses with his family after a football game between the NFL Academy team and De La Salle High School, Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024, in London. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

De La Salle High School coach and former NFL running back Maurice Jones-Drew, center, talks to his team during a football game between the NFL Academy team and De La Salle high school, Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024, in London. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

De La Salle running back Duece Jones-Drew carries the ball during a football game between the NFL Academy team and De La Salle high school, Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024, in London. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

NFL Academy player Rafael Varona Blackstad, center, listens to the coach after a football game between the NFL Academy team and De La Salle High School, Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024, in London. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

NFL Academy player Rafael Varona Blackstad, left, celebrates during a football game between the NFL Academy team and De La Salle High School, Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024, in London. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

NFL Academy player Rafael Varona Blackstad, center, listens to the coach after a football game between the NFL Academy team and De La Salle High School, Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024, in London. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

STOCKHOLM (AP) — The Nobel Prize in chemistry was awarded Wednesday to David Baker, Demis Hassabis and John Jumper for their work with proteins, the building blocks of life.

Baker works at the University of Washington in Seattle, while Hassabis and Jumper both work at Google Deepmind in London.

Baker designed a new protein in 2003 and his research group has since produced one imaginative protein creation after another, including proteins that can be used as pharmaceuticals, vaccines, nanomaterials and tiny sensors, the Nobel committee said.

Hassabis and Jumper created an artificial intelligence model that has been able to predict the structure of virtually all the 200 million proteins that researchers have identified, the committee added.

Heiner Linke, Chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, said scientists had long dreamt of predicting the three-dimensional structure of proteins.

“Four years ago in 2020, Demis Hassabis and John Jumper managed to crack the code with skillful use of artificial intelligence. They made it possible to predict the complex structure of essentially any known protein in nature,” Linke said.

“Another dream of scientists has been to build new proteins to learn how to use nature’s multi-tool for our own purposes. This is the problem that David Baker solved," he added. "He developed computational tools that now enable scientists to design spectacular new proteins with entirely novel shapes and functions, opening endless possibilities for the greatest benefit to humankind.”

Last year, the chemistry award went to three scientists for their work on quantum dots — tiny particles just a few nanometers in diameter that can release very bright colored light and whose applications in everyday life include electronics and medical imaging.

Six days of Nobel announcements opened Monday with Americans Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun winning the medicine prize. Two founding fathers of machine learning — John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton — won the physics prize.

The awards continue with the literature prize on Thursday. The Nobel Peace Prize will be announced Friday and the economics award on Oct. 14.

The prize carries a cash award of 11 million Swedish kronor ($1 million) from a bequest left by the award’s creator, Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel. The laureates are invited to receive their awards at ceremonies on Dec. 10, the anniversary of Nobel’s death.

Corder reported from The Hague, Netherlands.

Johan Åqvist, member of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, Hans Ellegren, Permanent Secretary and Heiner Linke, Chairman of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry award this years Nobel Prize in Chemistry to David Baker, Demis Hassabis, and John Jumper at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, in Stockholm, Sweden, Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024. (Christine Olsson/TT News Agency via AP)

Johan Åqvist, member of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, Hans Ellegren, Permanent Secretary and Heiner Linke, Chairman of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry award this years Nobel Prize in Chemistry to David Baker, Demis Hassabis, and John M Jumper at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, in Stockholm, Sweden, Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024. (Christine Olsson/TT News Agency via AP)

Johan Åqvist, member of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, Hans Ellegren, Permanent Secretary and Heiner Linke, Chairman of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry award this years Nobel Prize in Chemistry to David Baker, Demis Hassabis, and John M Jumper at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, in Stockholm, Sweden, Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024. (Christine Olsson/TT News Agency via AP)

FILE - Demis Hassabis, CEO of DeepMind Technologies and developer of AlphaGO, attendsthe UK Artificial Intelligence (AI) Safety Summit, at Bletchley Park, in Bletchley, England, Thursday, Nov. 2, 2023. (Toby Melville/Pool Photo via AP, File)

FILE - Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis answers a reporter's question during a press conference in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, March 15, 2016. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man, File)

FILE - Demis Hassabis, CEO of DeepMind Technologies, speaks at a Google I/O event in Mountain View, Calif., Tuesday, May 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)

FILE - A Nobel Prize medal is displayed before a ceremony at the Swedish Ambassador's Residence in London, Monday, Dec. 6, 2021. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham, File)

FILE - A close-up view of a Nobel Prize medal at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Md., Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2020. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)

The Nobel prize in chemistry is being awarded in Stockholm

The Nobel prize in chemistry is being awarded in Stockholm

FILE - A bust of Alfred Nobel on display following a press conference at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, on Monday, Oct. 3, 2022. (Henrik Montgomery/TT News Agency via AP, File)