Puka Nacua's middle school coach reveals story that explains Rams WR's work ethic

Puka Nacua is a workhorse. The Rams have seen that over the past two years as Nacua blossomed into one of the best young receivers in the NFL, but Nacua's former coaches knew about that work ethic long ago.

Jeremy Hill, who coached Nacua before he went to college at Washington and then BYU, told Rams reporter Wyatt Miller that he discovered Nacau would watch and analyze game film for four to six hours every weekend while he was in middle school. Hill said his players typically watched 20 to 30 minutes of film every week on Hudl, a platform schools use to watch and upload game footage. Nacua, however, watched as much as 12 times more film than his middle school teammates as well as the Orem High School players, Hill said.

That work paid off, as Hill explained that plays came seamlessly to Nacua once he hit the practice field.

"He would come to practice and he would bring up stuff he saw in the game or the chalk talk and he was right on top of it," Hill said.

Nacua went on to set Utah high school football records with 5,226 career receiving yards and 58 touchdowns, as well as the single-season receiving yards and touchdown records of 2,336 and 26 as a senior. Nacua didn't have a sensational statistical collegiate career with 1,749 receiving yards and 14 touchdowns in 32 games, but his game tape was good enough to catch the eye of the Rams, who took him in the fifth round of the 2023 NFL Draft.

His history is still being written, but the through-line of Nacua's work in middle school can be directly connected to him setting the NFL rookie single-season receiving yards record in 2023. He already has 2,476 receiving yards and nine touchdowns in just 28 NFL games and is expected to become Matthew Stafford's primary pass-catcher in 2025.

All that from studying six hours on weekends as a middle school student.

This article originally appeared on Rams Wire: Puka Nacua's ex-coach explains how WR prepared for middle school games

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