Despite the fact he didn’t start playing football until last year, four-star defensive end David Ojabo has earned more than 30 scholarship offers to play football in college.

Ojabo, a rising senior at Blair Academy in Blairstown, N.J., moved to the United States just two years ago. He was born in Nigeria, moved to Scotland when he was 7 years old and now lives with a host family in New Jersey while attending Blair, a boarding school.

When Ojabo took up football as a junior in 2017, he admittedly knew next to nothing about the sport.

“I didn’t even know anything coming into it,” Ojabo told The Clemson Insider. “I didn’t even know what the sport was about. So, I was starting from ground zero.”

Ojabo picked up things quickly, however, posting 35 tackles, six sacks and a couple of forced fumbles during his first campaign.

It didn’t take college coaches long to recognize the immense talent and athletic potential of Ojabo, who stands at 6-foot-5, 233 pounds and has a 6-foot-8 wingspan. He recently ran the 40-yard dash in 4.75 seconds at The Opening New York/Jersey regional, where he also recorded a 4.40-second shuttle time, 40-foot powerball throw and 33.3-inch vertical leap for one of the highest athletic ratings at the combine.

Ojabo received his first offer from Rutgers last November before seeing a slew of offers come in this calendar year.

“It’s crazy,” Ojabo said of his fast-rising recruitment. “I’ve got to stay grounded. … It’s just crazy, but I can’t let it get to my head.”

Clemson extended one of his lastest scholarship offers earlier this month after defensive coordinator Brent Venables traveled to evaluate him at his school.

The offer resonated with Ojabo, who has offers from a number of Ivy League schools and places a high value on academics and education in his recruitment.

Ojabo said he was aware of what Clemson has accomplished on the football field, but didn’t know much about the university’s academic prestige until talking with Venables about it following the offer.

“He talked to me about what Clemson has to offer,” Ojabo said. “Because everyone knows Clemson’s a powerhouse football school without even looking it up. It was good to hear they have more to offer on the acdemic side.

“They don’t just care about football over there. All I knew before was Clemson was national champions, powerhouse football, they contend for national championships every year. So, it just showed me a different side that I never knew.”

Besides Clemson, Ojabo owns offers from Texas A&M, Notre Dame, Michigan, Penn State, Tennessee, Ole Miss, Nebraska, West Virginia, Vanderbilt, Baylor, Cal, Pittsburgh, Arizona State, Maryland, Duke and others.

Ojabo is looking to visit Clemson and a number of other schools this summer as he begins the process of narrowing down his recruitment.

“I’ll definitely try to visit by probably this summer,” he said of Clemson. “Me and my family are going to sit down and we’re all going to shorten my list and we’re going try and go out to as many schools as possible.”

So, where does Clemson stand with Ojabo right now?

“I try to refrain from giving rankings right now, but I mean, who wouldn’t want to put Clemson high on their list?” he said. “I put academics first and then I put football. So when I found out about their academics, that already just boosted them up my list.

“I’m not going to say they’re first, second or third or anything. I don’t have that. I’d be lying to you. But they’re definitely up there. It was a big-time offer with big-time academics, too.”