Just In: Laiatu Latu Reponses To Early Impact From Colts

When you are taken away from football for two years in college, one has to question if other interests organically emerge.

That does not appear to be the case with Laiatu Latu.

After the Colts selected Latu with the 15th overall pick in the 2024 Draft, the accomplished pass rusher traveled to Indianapolis the next day for his debut news conference.

With the press conference closing down, Latu was questioned about his off-field hobbies.

“None,” a laughing Latu says. “It’s crazy.”

Is it all ball?

Somewhere, Shane Steichen is smiling.

“Before having it taken away, I never took for granted football. I loved it so much,” Latu says. “I looked up to my big brothers that were at U-Dub (Washington) and I tried to take after them. No one can be ready for adversity like that. I just have a different appreciation for the game. I love every minute being out there on that field.”

While the cause for Latu’s two-year absence from football—the Washington medical staff’s failure to clear him following a spinal procedure—raises some apparent long-term NFL concerns, it also rekindled an instinctive love of the game.

Miraculously, Latu went from a pedestrian freshman season at Washington (0.5 sacks, 1.5 tackles for loss) to sitting out football for the next two seasons, then returning to the game with UCLA in 2022 with consecutive double-digit sack seasons, producing the most sacks in college football from 2022 to 2023.

The passion of separation making the heart grow fonder certainly occurred for Latu in his time away.

But the fact that he returned as a dominant pass rusher, with simply training by himself, and not in team settings, is quite remarkable.

“I was already in love with football, but being in that down period where you don’t really have anyone else but yourself,” Latu now says. “I had my family, but I was in Seattle (and) they were in California. I just had to take it upon myself where I was taking little tools, little techniques (and) little drills from a pass rush coach here. I would see T.J. Watt or J.J. Watt do this in a game so I’m going to take that and mix it into my drill. It was a bunch of just really falling in love with the sport, falling in love with my craft and just learning as much as I can during that down period because I did tell myself I was going to be at a stage like this.”

As Latu moves on to the next level, there are numerous reasons why the Colts are confident about his potential influence over other early rushers.

One, Latu demonstrated that he can rush from either side of the defensive lien configuration.

Second, and maybe more importantly, Latu has a range of pass rush moves that he used successfully in the Pac-12.

“So Von Miller says to keep three moves in your bag, but I like to work a lot of things because I see pass rushers as being in comfortable and uncomfortable situations,” Latu explains. “I like to rep consistently certain moves and break it down into slow motion and to really see how I’m feeling in certain ways. I see that come out come game time. Like I might be running, and I might not even throw a move, it’s just a reactionary thing that comes out from the heart – from the extra work I was putting in and the consistency that I was doing that. It just translates to the field.”

Latu clearly considers pass rushing as an art, in addition to possessing amazing athleticism.

When he received word from the Washington medical personnel about his neck problem, it was far from certain that he would be able to properly demonstrate it.

It was also ambiguous as to how Latu felt.

“What the doctors were telling me I didn’t agree with because I didn’t feel that at the same time,” the California native says. “It was easy for me not to give up. It was easy for me to be confident with everything. Obviously, it was emotional because I’m being told and I can’t control what they’re telling me. So obviously it’s emotional, but I never got in a negative mindset. I never got down on myself. I always believed that I was going to work towards this.”