Talk about an unlikely path to the draft.

In 2010, David Onyemata was living in Nigeria and hadn’t even heard of American football. In 2016, an NFL team is going to pay him to play it.

The former University of Manitoba star is the only Canadian with a good shot at being selected in the league’s entry draft, which kicks off Thursday and concludes early Saturday evening.

The CFL Scouting Bureau on Tuesday elevated Onyemata from No. 2 to the No. 1 north-of-the-border prospect for the three-down league’s draft, May 10.

No matter, Onyemata confirmed in a phone interview with Postmedia last Friday his entire football focus is aimed south of the border.

The defensive lineman is a Day 3 pick in the NFL draft, meaning he’d be taken anywhere from the fourth to seventh round.

Onyemata possesses prodigious raw talents for a 6-foot-3, 300-pound man: great power, burst and athleticism. He was not invited to the NFL’s scouting combine, but at his UofM pro day he put up numbers that match him, physically, with the top D-linemen in a draft packed with good ones.

For instance, Onyemata bench-pressed 33 reps of 225 pounds at his pro day; none of the 64 D-linemen at the combine could do that. His vertical jump was 33 inches; only 18 jumped as high at the combine. And his broad jump was 9-feet-11; only nine jumped as far at the combine.

There’s an outside shot that a team sold on his talents might take him Friday night, in Round 3.

It’s amazing, really, that a 23-year-old who grew up in Lagos, Nigeria, and immigrated to Winnipeg in 2011 -- all by himself -- finds himself in this position this week.

“It was in high school in Winnipeg when I first heard of football,” Onyemata said Friday in a phone interview. “My buddies, who came up to my high school from the States, kind of talked about it. I wasn’t even aware of football then.

“The first time I watched a football game was in 2011, on TV. It was a CFL game. I can’t remember what teams were even playing.”

Onyemata’s parents still live back in Nigeria. They sent him solo to Canada, to get a quality education.

“That’s normal back home,” Onyemata said. “Most people just go abroad for school.

“I moved here for that reason, by myself. I have a sister in the B.C. area, but that’s it. No other family in Canada.”

His parents not only have never seen him play football, they’ve only seen him once since he left Nigeria in 2011.

“Hopefully they’ll see me play in an NFL game -- soon,” Onyemata said.

It was only late last season that Onyemata said he became convinced he could make it to the NFL. On top of being named a two-time West all-star in Canadian college football, he won the J.P. Metras Trophy as the nation’s top down lineman last season.

He was invited to take part in the East-West Shrine Game in Florida in January, a U.S. post-season bowl game for departing U.S. college stars. Coaches switched him to defensive end, yet Onyemata still turned some heads.

NFL Network’s chief draft analyst Mike Mayock took notice and continues to talk him up.

“The Onyemata kid has sparked the most (NFL) interest of all (the Canadian) guys,” Mayock told me last Friday on his pre-draft conference call. “I followed him around at the East-West game for two days.

“He looks the part. He’s a big, good-looking kid. He moves well. He has no idea what he’s doing, but in the one week of the East-West game, he improved immeasurably, which gives coaches hope that he could translate that at the next level. I’ve got him stacked in my fifth round. But ‘Will he be ready to contribute?’ is the thing.”

What hurts the draft stock of such a promising but raw prospect, Mayock said, is a team knows it probably can’t draft him and park him on the practice squad for a year, “because somebody is going to poach him.”

That’s exactly what happened in 2013 with another Canadian defensive tackle, Toronto’s Stefan Charles. Tennessee signed him as an undrafted free agent, put him on the practice squad in September, then a month later Buffalo signed him to its 53-man roster. After three seasons with the Bills, Charles is now a Detroit Lion.

It appears likely that some team will draft Onyemata and keep him on its active 53-man roster following early September cutdowns.

Because of the buzz that followed Onyemata out of his pro day last month (attended by talent evaluators from 17 NFL clubs), teams were elbowing each other right up to last Thursday’s deadline to land a visit from Onyemata. He squeezed in as many as logistically possible.

At each stop he underwent a gruelling physical, on top of on-field workouts and the usual meetings with coaches, scouts and other talent evaluators.

“I’m glad that part of it’s over,” he said.

Now it’s wait-and-see time. Onyemata said he will watch the draft on TV in the apartment he shares with “my close buddies from school.” He’ll wait for his phone to ring. A day later, he’ll be flying south.

JoKryk@postmedia.com

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