Top Safeties in NFL Draft: Ashtyn Davis

A former walk-on checks in at No. 4 in our ranking of the top safeties in the NFL Draft.

A former walk-on checks in at No. 4 in our ranking of the top safeties in the NFL Draft.

Ashtyn Davis cleared more than a few hurdles on his path to the draft.

At Santa Cruz (Calif.) High School, Davis was the big fish in a small pond as the star of a lousy football team. It was track and field where he opened eyes, as he finished fifth at the state meet in the 110- and 300-meter hurdles.

Davis garnered no recruiting interest in football but was good enough in track to walk on at Cal. He jumped at the opportunity for one reason: to get a chance to play on its football team. Upon arriving on campus for the 2014-15 school year, he reached out to Cal’s football team. More accurately, he reached out to the school’s director of football administration, Andrew McGraw.

“Coming up here, I Googled and tried to find who it was I had to talk to,” Davis told The Daily Cal. “I found ) Andrew McGraw and found out that he actually went to my high school, so I e-mailed him probably five or six times before I got a response.” That came in Spring 2015. He would be allowed to try out at defensive back. He showed enough promise that he was allowed to join the team.

Meanwhile, Davis kept blossoming on the track. In Spring 2016, he finished second in the 110-meter hurdles at the conference meet and just missed qualifying for the finals at the NCAA Championships. That was enough for Davis to be offered a scholarship from the track team. However, it came with one large caveat. His football days would be over.

Football was Davis’ dream. He wasn’t about to let it die for a free education.

“I talked to (my parents). I didn't obviously make that decision by myself,” Davis said at the Scouting Combine. “I gave them a call and they were willing to take out loans and kind of work around it, in order to have the opportunity to play. Nothing was guaranteed, but I'm super-thankful that they did and they kind of believed in me and I bet on myself because I knew that I could do some of the things that some of the guys were doing. I'm happy it all worked out.”

Davis wound up being a three-year starter with seven career interceptions. In 2019, he was one of three finalists for the Burlsworth Trophy, which goes to the nation’s best player who began his career as a walk-on. He was second-team all-Pac-12 as a senior with 57 tackles, two interceptions, seven total passes defensed and two forced fumbles. Plus, he had a career average of 22.9 yards per kickoff return.

What we like

You’d have to be an idiot to not notice how the track speed shows up on the football field. Davis covers a lot of ground – the No. 1 trait for any safety. Moreover, while some track guys are, well, track guys masquerading as football players, Davis is a true football player. He’s not the biggest, toughest guy in the world but he only missed eight tackles, that 12 percent missed-tackle rate among the better ones in the safety class.

What we don’t like

Davis is aggressive to a fault. If he can harness his enthusiasm, he’s got a chance to be really good. He’s not built for box action.