AMES, Iowa — With National Signing Day fast approaching, Iowa State’s offensive staff sat huddled around a conference table inside the Bergstrom Football Complex, the projector illuminating the room as it shot film onto the white screen against the wall. Recent attrition had opened a scholarship spot, and the staff searched the country for a receiver prospect to fill the void.

For weeks, then-Iowa State running backs coach and Texas recruiter Louis Ayeni had been pushing a long, lanky 6-foot-6 prospect from Texas with no luck. The Cyclones had been full at receiver and Ayeni’s pitches had gone nowhere from the time they started in December to now in late January 2015. Ayeni had grown disappointed he couldn’t extend an offer, but there was nothing he could do. Now, he sat and watched film of receiver after receiver. Finally, he spoke up.

“Put Hakeem Butler’s film on and tell me why this guy is not good enough,” Ayeni told the gathered coaches. “Tell me why. Because I don’t understand.”

One of the coaches loaded Butler’s film.

“Man, this kid is pretty good,” the assistants rumbled. “He’s pretty good.”

“Why don’t we get him offered?” they said.

Then-receivers coach Tommy Mangino had chimed in first and quarterbacks coach Todd Sturdy and offensive coordinator Mark Mangino joined in agreement. When the offensive staff had settled on a decision, they reported their findings to then-head coach Paul Rhoads for a final verdict.

“If you guys are sure,” Rhoads said, “we’ll do it.”

Ayeni wasted no time. With a little more than one week until players signed, he called Butler and attempted to quickly set up an official visit.

“Do you want to come up on a Monday-Tuesday visit?” Ayeni asked.

“For me, any way to get out of school I was like, ‘For sure, I’m definitely there,’ Butler said. “I just came up here and it was different.”

Butler visited Iowa State from Jan. 26-27 and left with an offer. He’d visit nearby Houston that weekend before making a decision. That Monday, following the visit and two days before the Feb. 4 Signing Day, Butler committed to the Cyclones. In less than two weeks time, Iowa State had gone from making the late decision to offer Butler to landing him as one of the final pieces of the 2015 class.

When Butler finished his senior season at Travis High School the previous fall he had no scholarship offers and was regarded as the 311th-best player in Texas. How far he’s come in the four years since.

Midway through his junior season at Iowa State, Butler is becoming one of the most prolific receivers in program history. His 1,310 career receiving yards rank No. 18 all-time in school history and rising while his 14 touchdown receptions are tied for sixth all-time. At the midway point of this 2018 season, Butler has 24 receptions for 479 yards and five touchdowns as he inches toward becoming only the fifth 1,000-yard receiver in Iowa State history while also closing in on the single-season mark for touchdown receptions (10) at the same time.

All that, and Butler nearly didn’t end up in Ames, Iowa.

An under-the-radar prep career

Hakeem grew up in Baltimore as one of three children to Sherryl Ford, who worked long hours to provide for her family and raise her children. The Butlers lived in a one-bedroom home located in a dangerous city neighborhood filled with violence. But basketball focused Hakeem.

It was tragedy that shifted Butler’s life and began his path toward football. When he was 16-years old, Butler’s mother died of breast cancer. Soon after her death, Butler moved to Texas to live with cousins Aaron and Andrew Harrison, who would later star for Kentucky basketball before reaching the NBA. In Texas, Butler enrolled at Travis High School and became a two-sport athlete.

There was just one problem.

“Because of the rules moving to Texas from Baltimore and with who I was and who my family was — Texas there are a lot of rules with transferring — they thought I moved for athletic purposes,” Butler said. “So I only played six games my junior year and then I played seven games my senior year.”

After Butler was forced to sit out the first half of his junior season, his production ramped up during his senior year. He caught 28 passes for 378 yards and five touchdowns while sharing the load with eventual Kansas receiver Steven Sims Jr., who likewise has become one of the program’s best.

“I didn’t really get the ball that much,” Butler said. “Us two on the team together, there were maybe like five playmakers on the team, and we just made a lot of plays but my teammate made more plays than me so I was under the radar.”

Butler’s 247Sports Composite of 0.7891 made him a two-star prospect and the No. 271 overall receiver in the 2015 recruiting class. He held no offers when his senior season ended. Maybe his future was in something else. As November turned to December, Butler shifted his attention to basketball.

“I didn’t have any offers after football season and I was kind of questioning if I was even going to play football,” Butler said. “I thought I was going to have to go the basketball route.”

Discovering the hidden gem

The first time Ayeni walked into the gym at Travis High School, Butler jumped over two defenders, caught the ball and threw down an alley-oop. Ayeni begins to chuckle even now thinking back to the vicious dunk.

“I was like, ‘This dude is a freak show,’” Ayeni said.

It was around that time, in December 2014, that schools began to show up to the gym to watch Butler. Ayeni first became aware of Butler during his junior season while scouting Texas, but because he was forced to sit out half of the season, there was hardly any film. Still, Ayeni was impressed.

“I remember watching his film and saying, ‘My goodness, this guy, he’s doing everything and he’s huge,’” Ayeni said. “He’s blocking kicks, he’s playing defensive end, he’s playing tight end, he’s playing receiver.”

So after Butler’s senior season Ayeni stopped back in. He sat and watch practice before Butler came over to chat. “I remember shaking his hand and he engulfs my hand,” Ayeni said. “I felt like a little kid next to him. I’m not a small dude and I’m like, ‘Who is this guy?’"

“Do you know who Iowa State is?” Ayeni asked.

“I don’t know who y’all are,” Butler said. “Where’s Iowa?”

Ayeni pulled out his phone, loaded Google Maps and showed him.

“We’re in the Big 12,” Ayeni said.

“Everything was new to me," Butler says now.

The two took a photo together and Ayeni left.

“You’re as big as everybody says you are,” Ayeni told him.

Butler became Ayeni’s focus.

“You just saw the potential of what he could be if he was in our program. I just saw a guy who could go up and get the ball, a guy who is athletic, can bend and run around. We didn’t have those type of guys on the roster,” Ayeni said. “I’m saying to myself, ‘How do you not take this kid? He is something.’ I couldn’t believe that he didn’t have any offers. I’m sitting there and in my head I’m like, ‘How do we get this kid before people find out?’”

In the weeks that followed, Ayeni pitched Butler’s name to Iowa State coaches hoping the program would extend an offer. The weeks passed with no such luck.

“Initially I couldn’t get anybody to take the bait on him at Iowa State because we were full at receiver,” Ayeni said. “I was like, ‘You’ve got to take this kid. He’s a freak.’ We didn’t have the greatest roster at the time and I was a little disappointed because nobody wanted to offer him.”

As time passed and the offer approval didn’t come, Ayeni began to switch his focus. Butler, he thought, was too good and had overcome too much to not have a chance to play college football. So he began calling some buddies in the industry to tell them about this long, lanky receiver in Texas.

“He got me some offers to some other schools and helped me out,” Butler said. “One day he was just telling me, ‘I don’t know if we’ll have a scholarship for you. I don’t know if Coach Rhoads will offer you.’ My grades and things like that, that scared so many people off.”

“It’s hard because I want this kid at Iowa State because he can help change our program,” Ayeni said. “But if we’re not going to take him I wanted to make sure the kid had an opportunity to play college football somewhere and I wanted him to be with good people.”

Some offers rolled in throughout January from McNeese State, Central Arkansas, New Mexico State and then eventually Houston. It was late January when several players transferred out of the Iowa State program — including the likes of receiver Damein Lawry and tight end Alex Leslie — to open a scholarship and send the staff into a meeting room to evaluate film.

Ayeni had gotten his wish to offer Butler. Now they needed to land him.

“I was a little worried because the one guy who I would talk about him the most with was [strength coach] Yancy McKnight,” Ayeni said. “Yancy was like, ‘Lou, these are the type of guys the University of Houston would have when I was at Rice and they’re just freak shows and they turn into freaks.’”

McKnight had left Iowa State two weeks earlier to join Tom Herman at Houston and one of the first offers that went out was to Butler. Now they were going head-to-head.

Butler visited Iowa State first and received an offer from the Cyclones exactly one week before Signing Day. The weekend trip to Houston followed. “I don’t know if I’ve ever been that stressed,” Butler said. “This dictates your life.”

Two days before Signing Day, Butler picked Iowa State.

“Everything was different from what I’ve known,” Butler said. “I wanted a different feel from the city life, fast pace, dangerous stuff.”

“Sometimes when you’re full at a certain spot you really don’t pay attention to anything else that’s out there because there’s no room,” Ayeni said. “Hakeem’s ability wasn’t limited to just playing receiver. He could have been a tight end, he could have been a defensive end, he could be anything. He was just all over the place. I was like, ‘This freak could be something.’”

Before Butler finally faxed his National Letter of Intent, other schools began to think so too. As can happen in recruiting, when Butler committed to Iowa State, a Power 5 school, 48 hours before signing, other schools began looking too. Relationships kept Butler from entertaining the late interest.

“A ton of schools called me Signing Day and I don’t know what happened, my name got out there super late, but schools all over the country, Pac-12, Big Ten, everybody started calling me on Signing Day saying, ‘Just wait until tomorrow, wait until tomorrow,’” Butler said. “I was just like, ‘That just doesn’t sound like a guarantee to me.’ Iowa State was like, ‘We’ll sign you whether you’re eligible or not.’ They waited around and look at me now.”

Developing into one of Iowa State’s best

The first time Matt Campbell saw Butler was during his first team meeting as head coach in late November 2015 following Butler’s redshirt season.

“Boy,” Campbell said, “just impressed when I saw him the first time.”

Butler was somewhere between 6-foot-6 and 6-foot-7 when he arrived in Ames, but he was skinny, weighing around 180 pounds. During his first days on campus, Butler looked around at everybody else. “There’s no way I’m ever going to play here,” he thought to himself. But if there was one thing Butler had, even when he was 175 pounds in high school, it was strength.

“I was always just strong for how skinny I was,” Butler said.

“He’s always been functionally strong. You watch him play on the field and he’s always been strong whether it’s blocking or his balance and breaking tackles,” Ayeni added. “He was the same way when he was younger, same way when I watched him play basketball. He could bang with anybody in the paint.”

Butler caught nine passes for 134 yards and two touchdowns during his first season on the field in 2016. It was after the season that the challenges truly began coming from Campbell. To the media he’d soon call Butler arguably the most talented player on the roster, but one who needed to be consistent to reach the potential Campbell envisioned.

Before Rudy Wade arrived as strength coach, Butler dreaded workouts. But as the challenges came he spent more time focused on his body. He credits Wade with his transformation.

“I saw the gains and I started to fall in love with the weight room,” Butler said.

“Part of that consistency that he had to find was how good he can be. Sometimes when a guy hasn’t grown up playing football his whole life you don’t know what you don’t know until you start to get into it,” Campbell said. “That’s what he found. Once he started to understand what he could become, all of a sudden you’ve seen him flourish.”

By last season, Butler had bulked up to 220 pounds. Serving as Allen Lazard’s sidekick, Butler still managed 41 catches for 697 yards and seven touchdowns.

After Butler’s 111-yard performance in the Liberty Bowl, Campbell presented him with another challenge: Become the man. Midway through his junior season, Butler has done that, totaling nearly 500 yards. He has flipped into the end zone, tap-danced to stay in bounds and broken a handful of tackles to get there another time, something all who know him say begins in practice.

“Every week, every day something pops up,” receivers coach Bryan Gasser said. “There’s that ‘wow’ factor to him. He comes every day and practices like it’s game day and when you’re 6-6 and can run like he can and you’re loose and have that type of catch radius, fun things will show up.”

Butler has proven a lot in two and a half seasons on the field, but the junior feels there is much more to accomplish. “I feel like there are people who still doubt,” he said.” Butler isn’t trying to prove any one person wrong so much as he has strived to prove the people who believed in him right.

“When he was here, every time I’d score, every time I’d make a catch, every game, I’m like, ‘Coach Lou, I’m just trying to prove you right,’” Butler said. “Because there were so many people that doubted me throughout the process and Coach Lou just always believed in me.”

“Listen, he developed, he put the work in, he put the time in. We gave him the opportunity and the avenue to showcase himself and he took advantage of it,” Ayeni said. “It just makes you proud.”

If Butler returns for his senior season at Iowa State next year, he could approach the top echelon in the program’s record books from receptions to receiving yards to touchdowns. The kid who had no offers coming out of his senior season and netted one from Iowa State only seven days before the deadline is now on track to assert himself as one of the best receivers the school has seen.

“It may be crazy to some people, but I always knew exactly what I was capable of,” Butler said. “I’ve been underrated my whole life, under the radar my whole life and I still am now I would say. Maybe not to the Big 12, but to the rest of the world. I’m constantly trying to prove myself. I have a lot left to prove.”

If Butler has proven one thing, it’s that he was good enough to play at Iowa State.

“I always think about it,” Butler said. “I don’t know what phone call he got or who told him to come to my school that day, but I’m definitely thankful. I’m forever indebted to Coach Lou. That man knows I love him. I would definitely say that one moment, that conversation, changed my life.”