Jaelan Phillips is 6-foot-6 and 250 pounds of pass rushing force. A defensive end with the ranging abilities of a linebacker, Phillips comes at offensive linemen with a savage blend of speed and power that helps explain his newly-minted status as the 247Sports Composite National Player of the Year.

Phillips is the first player in the 16-year history of tracking to hold the No. 1 crown in the 247Sports Composite without being ranked as the No. 1 player by any particular recruiting service, but his gross average across the board is higher than anyone's. 247Sports' own rankings, the Top247, slotted Phillips second.

RELATED: Full 247Sports Composite update for 2017 class

The Redlands East Valley (Calif.) product is a UCLA early enrollee who held offers from nearly every major program in the country before blossoming into the country’s top-ranked player.

And just three years ago, he thought he’d head to Stanford – for academics.

“This is not really a dream come true because it’s never been a dream of mine to be able to do this,” Phillips told 247Sports. “But it literally is surreal. I don’t think it’s really set in for me.”

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A 6-foot-1, “average at best” wide receiver as a freshman, Phillips’ collegiate intentions skewed toward academia. The son of a lawyer and a human resources head, he inherited a brain he thought was meant for higher education. With only one “B” in his life (Honors Math Analysis always seems to trip people up) and a 4.6 GPA, Phillips isn’t wrong.

But then he started to grow.

During his first year of high school, Phillips’ head coach, Kurt Bruich, put him on a “prospects to know” list at Stanford. Bruich knew Special Teams Coordinator Pete Alamar, his college coach, and told him he had a player Alamar must look at.

“I saw that fast twitch he had,” Bruich said. “I knew the length he had and he’d be a perfect rush linebacker/defensive end. I’m like a dinosaur with 15 years as a head coach here. I don’t sell (college coaches) on things that shouldn’t be sold.”

Phillips had always been an above average athlete. His dad, Jon, remembers Phillips being among the top two or three players in his age group no matter the sport. For a while, Phillips thought his best sport was baseball, where he hit .400 as a DH.

During the first half of the 2014 calendar year, Phillips’ clothes started to be an issue. He’d always had “clown feet” but his body started to catch up. He sprouted four inches that year and arrived as a sophomore at 6-foot-5.

Phillips moved to linebacker his sophomore season and felt “like a deer.” “I was all lanky,” Phillips said. Even with that issue, his potential started to crystallize. Still, thoughts of college football remained foreign. Friends started to have recruiting pages appear on Rivals. All the while, Phillips wondered how they got them.

“I would always look for my name hoping it’d pop up,” Phillips said.

Phillips attended a satellite camp (how his friends got profiles) in June following his sophomore season and his life changed. A deer he might be, but Washington saw him run and thought they’d found a tight end.

Monday, Phillips awoke at noon with six missed calls from Bruich. When he finally hit his coach back, Bruich told him, “Hey, Washington is about to offer you.” Phillips began to freak out. He had never even talked to a coach before.

When that call did come, his parents handed him a set of questions to ask: What do we do now? Where do we go from here? Is this a full scholarship offer?

“That moment to me was bonkers,” Phillips said. “I literally just walked around the house thinking, ‘Holy hell, this just happened. I didn’t even know what to think.'”

Many prospects, especially the elite five-star variety, are unearthed early. Players in Phillips’ class like Tate Martell, who Phillips used to watch highlights of as a freshman, and Dylan Moses were offered in middle school.

For Phillips to get his first offer entering his junior year came as a shock. Both he and his parents had a lot to learn quickly when they talked to Washington running backs coach Keith Bhonapha, Phillips’ area recruiter.

“We just had no idea of when should we visit, how many times should we visit, were phone calls allowed, what was a dead period?” Jon Phillips said. “We spent 20 minutes just walking through the basic mechanics.”

Washington remained the only school to offer Phillips until his junior season. It took about three weeks for that to change.

After a few games of film at linebacker, schools started dialing up Phillips daily. The third week of Phillips’ junior season UCLA assistant head coach Demetrice Martin, Phillips’ recruiter, asked him to come for a visit but didn’t offer. The next morning, USC called up and offered. When Martin found out, he texted Bruich: “Those bastards, I’m calling him right now.” UCLA, Jon's alma mater, followed up shortly with an offer of their own.

Stanford verbally extended in December. Others like Alabama, Notre Dame and Florida came later, but Phillips already had the offers he desired on the West Coast.

For all of Phillips’ analytical thinking abilities, his visits all had a common theme – every single school was right for him.

“Literally every visit we took when we left that school, his first comment would be, ‘This is the perfect place for me,’" Jon Phillips said.

Phillips was ready to commit to the Cardinal at one point after a third visit. He had his phone out ready to make the call and complete a dream, but dad advised him to stop. After a day of thinking, Phillips felt he should visit UCLA again.

A week after that April 8, 2016 visit, less than a year after he got his first recruiting page, Phillips committed to UCLA.

“I’ve been around UCLA my whole life,” Phillips said. “I just feel comfortable with the team, and being around the team. For what I want to do, be a sports broadcaster, the LA media market is one of the best in the country. I also want to be able to be a part of something new, go in and make an immediate impact and turn things around.”

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But that’s his rise as a recruit in terms of offers. A shock to maybe only him, Phillips is playing college football. His rocket ship to the top, though? That’s a development only a most forward-thinking recruiting analyst would have envisioned.

Phillips still remembers the ESPN rankings. Even after his Washington offer he’d look at ESPN and see a “NR” next to his name on the profile. Then, one day, he jumped all the way up to No. 3.

“That was really mind blowing,” Phillips said.

Many recruits will brush off the importance of the rankings or claim not to pay attention. Phillips, with his baritone voice, isn’t like that. During the spring of his junior season he recalls “refreshing” pages quite frequently.

“People say, ‘Oh stars don’t matter,'” Phillips said. “But it for sure matters. It doesn’t affect my ego or how I play, if anything, it makes me play harder because I have to prove myself.”

Just 19 months after that initial offer – and recruiting page – Phillips is the No. 1 overall player in the country.

He’s a 6-foot-6 defensive end who could very well start for the Bruins next season replacing senior Takkarist McKinley. 247Sports Director of Scouting, Barton Simmons, called him “unique” as a pass rusher because of his ability to pile up sacks but also drop into coverage “like a linebacker.”

Phillips’ stats his senior year was astonishing. He totaled 142 tackles, 21 sacks and even grabbed an interception. That’s quite the jump from the year prior when he had 87 tackles and 13.5 sacks, especially when you consider he played just his first season as a full-time pass rusher.

“He’s not close to maxed out,” Bruich said. “Everybody sees it. The whole rush end thing came about last summer. He’s got a million things to learn there.”

That’s appropriate. No player in the country rose more rapidly as a recruit than Phillips the last two years.

From NR to No. 1, Phillips is now thinking NFL instead of his academic future.

Just don’t tell him he’s great. As smart as he is – and as often as he hears traits like “motor,” “speed at my size” and “good in the open field” – he remains abashed at his placement.

“I still don’t think I’m that good, to be honest,” Phillips said. “I don’t see why I’m a five-star, to be honest with you. They tell me, and it makes sense, but it still baffles me. Growing up and watching these (recruits), they’re gods to a high school kid. To be in that company now doesn’t register in my mind.”

Your No. 1 overall player in the 2017 class, America.