Just call it The Day the NFL Came to Winnipeg.

Around two-thirds of the teams from the best football league in the world will have representatives in town, Monday, all to watch one man lift some weights and run around on an indoor soccer field.

That man, of course, is 23-year-old Winnipegger David Onyemata, the hottest NFL prospect – make that the ONLY NFL prospect – from these parts since Izzy Idonije.

And the Fort Garry campus is buzzing with anticipation for the first NFL “pro day” in Manitoba history.

“To see this unfold for one of their teammates is somewhat surreal,” Bisons head coach Brian Dobie told me. “And it's going to become real on Monday.”

This is not only unprecedented for the Bison program, it's probably unprecedented for any Canadian university. At least to this extent.

“We have 21 teams that have said they are coming,” Onyemata's agent, Carter Chow, said from Los Angeles. “Winnipeg's a little bit of a tricky destination. So depending on weather, and we've got to make sure guys have passports... it's difficult to say exactly how many teams will be there until we actually get there on Monday.”

This is new territory for Chow and his agency, Yee and Dubin Sports, too.

While it represents some of the biggest names in the game (hello, Tom Brady), Onyemata is the first Canadian in the fold.

“We were fortunate to receive a call from him,” Chow said, recalling how this unlikely relationship began. “He was referred to us by a contact we have in the CFL. Just an impressive young man. And he's got a great story.”

It's Cinderellian, actually. Only with a glass slipper to fit a 6-foot-4, 300-pounder.

Onyemata had never seen a football game, let alone played in one, when he showed up at Coach Dobie's door, five years ago.

Now he's NFL-bound.

And that's not just hometown hype talking.

“He will play in the NFL, there's no question about that,” Chow said. “He'll get an opportunity... but a lot depends on how he does on Monday, obviously.”

It's hard to believe teams put that much stock in a pro day. But apparently they do.

So how much Onyemata bench presses and how many times he does it, how high and how far he jumps, how quickly he runs around sets of cones and how fast he runs the 40-yard dash will go a long way to determining what happens next.

After Onyemata caught everyone's eye at the East-West Shrine Game in January, it seem the question of “what happens next” has changed.

It seems no longer will Monday determine IF he's taken in the NFL draft.

“If you would have asked me that a couple of months ago, I would have said, 'Whether or not' (he's drafted),” Chow said. “But now it's a matter of where. It's hard to find players with that size that can move like he does.”

That combination of sheer mass, strength and agility led to Onyemata winning the Metras Trophy as the top lineman in Canadian university football last season – just his FOURTH season of actually playing the game.

But that's only part of the great story that caught the attention of Chow's firm.

“We wanted to meet him. So we brought him out to California,” the agent explained. “When we had a chance to meet him out here we were just impressed with him as a person, and he fit the type of player we were looking for from a character standpoint.

“We're very selective in who we choose to work with.”

Dobie was selective, too, at first.

When Onyemata knocked quietly on his door that first time, he told him he could join the team to learn the game, but one missed practice and he was done.

Earlier this week, the two sat in the spacious Bison locker-room and got caught up -- as players continually dropped by to wish their teammate well.

“Four years ago nobody knew your name,” Dobie told Onyemata. “They couldn't pronounce it.”

Recalling how Onyemata was “just this big kid with a smile on his face and a shy attitude, standing on the sidelines and watching most of our practice,” Dobie almost can't believe it, either.

About a dozen years ago, Idonije had one scout, from the Cleveland Browns, travel to Winnipeg.

“It's kind of shocking, to be honest with you,” Dobie said. “I mean, I was hoping we'd have three or four teams come up here. Everything's changed.”

It speaks volumes for how far the Canadian college game has come.

As it does about how far a 23-year-old Nigerian Winnipegger has come.

The NFL is coming to see, first-hand.

pfriesen@postmedia.com

Twitter: @friesensunmedia