NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Junior defensive linemen Yilanan Ouattara and Linus Zunk, hailing from Cologne and Berlin, Germany, respectively, have a similar beginning to their journey playing American football. Only five years later, they’re teammates on the Vanderbilt football team with dreams of playing in the NFL.
Both student-athletes started playing American football after being encouraged by friends to start. That’s about where the similarities in their paths to Vanderbilt end.
For Zunk, the love for the game was almost immediate. Ouattara took a little bit more convincing. From the few clips he’d seen, he thought it looked cool, but aside from that, didn’t know much about the sport.
In Germany, school and sports are separate, and American football is not a popular sport. Zunk played basketball most of his life before taking to the gridiron, while Ouattara competed in swimming, crew and tennis.
From the “heart of Europe” to the heart of Tennessee
After one season of nine-man under-16 football and a second season hindered by the COVID-19 pandemic, Zunk went looking for other options to play.
“That’s [after COVID] when I reached out to an organization called European Elite,” he said. “There’s a bunch of organizations over in Germany that send basketball, football, lacrosse players over to the United States for high school.”
Having always wanted the “high school experience,” he jumped on the opportunity when Rabun Gap-Nacoochee High School offered him a spot as a junior. Coming to the U.S., Zunk knew college football would be a possibility but had zero collegiate offers at that point.
“I came here as someone who’s not on the map and had two years to prove myself,” he stated. “If the opportunity [to play in college] came around, I’d take it. But nothing was guaranteed by the time I came to high school.”
In just two years of playing the game, Zunk emerged from high school as a three-star prospect and the No. 54 defensive end in the country (ESPN) and was being recruited by several Ivy League and Sun Belt Conference schools.
He also had caught the attention of the Vanderbilt coaching staff. When the offer from the Dores came, he accepted.
“[Vanderbilt] is what I was looking for—a good education while being able to play football at a high level,” he said. “It was pretty much a no-brainer for me.”
Cologne to Commodore Nation
Ouattara’s path to Nashville looked a little different. When he graduated high school in Germany in 2020, he had only played football one season.
“I didn’t really know anything about [football], so at first I wasn’t very enthused to play,” he admitted.
That changed when the team conducted tests, running 40-yard dashes and similar drills.
“I was pretty fast and athletic for my size, and my coach was like ‘if you really wanted to take it all the way, you probably would have a chance to play in college,’” Ouattara recalled. “From there, the decision was pretty fast for me that I wanted to pursue it, so I was 100 percent in.”
His postgraduate plans to come to the United States to play football hit a speed bump, though, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, forcing him to wait a year.
In the summer of 2021, he was able to participate in a camp tour, a common recruiting tool for international collegiate hopefuls, where prospects have the opportunity to tour the U.S. going from camp to camp, trying to show themselves as potential recruits. Ouattara hit another obstacle when, right before leaving for camp, he tore his hamstring, inhibiting him from participating save for a few private workouts.
The next year, he played a postgraduate season with his club team in Germany before receiving the call with an offer from Vanderbilt.
Black and gold and beyond
Vanderbilt’s campus is where these two stories reconnect. Zunk and Ouattara’s first years on West End Avenue were ones of learning and development.
“It was a lot,” Ouattara said of his first months at Vandy. Writing papers in English for the first time was an added challenge to the many other firsts in his freshman year of college.
While the pace of college compared to high school is faster, Zunk had two years of high school in the United States under his belt and with help from junior EDGE Daren Agu (London, England) was able to provide support for Ouattara.
“The game is obviously different,” Zunk commented. “Coming from Germany to high school, it’s a lot different. It’s a lot faster. It’s a lot better. It’s the same thing going from high school to college. It’s just another transition that takes getting used to physically and mentally.”
After not seeing the field his first year, Zunk played in nine games as a sophomore, posting seven tackles. This season, he’s played in all three games so far and has already recorded more than half his total from 2023. The Dores’ season-opening win over Virginia Tech was a career game for the junior, who recorded three tackles, including 2.5 for loss and 1.5 sacks.
LINUS ZUNK 😤 pic.twitter.com/DoAdap2qX0
— Vanderbilt Football (@VandyFootball) August 31, 2024
“It’s all about learning—learning from coaches, learning from other players all year round,” Zunk said. “I always think about it like, I’m going to be as good as I’m taught to be. However I turn out, it’s a product of the coaches, obviously, of me getting all the resources, being around the players, us making each other better. And I think I’ve done a good job of that.”
Ouattara has seen similar growth in his time in the black and gold, almost tripling his total tackles from four in 2022 to 11 in 2023. So far this season, he’s played in all three games and has seven tackles and one pass breakup. He also matched his career-best with four stops against Alcorn State.
He named Larry Black, the defensive line coach, as the person who’d been the most influential on his growth on the field as a Commodore.
“If you know him, he’s a very intense coach, and he brings it every day,” he commented. “That’s what you need when you’re newer to the game. Trying to soak up everything you can every day and keep that level of attention to detail was a big thing for me.”
“The coaches knew bringing us in that we were going to be developmental,” Zunk added. “They’re going to have to get us to a point where we’re going to be ready to play. They’ve helped us get to where we are, and they’ll continue to help us get to where we want to go.”
Winning more games is the immediate goal for Ouattara and Zunk. But bigger goals lie on the horizon as both men hope to play in the NFL.
“That’s what I came here to do, to get developed and to be ready to play at the highest level,” Ouattara concluded.
Ouattara, Zunk and the rest of the Vanderbilt football team kick off SEC action at 3:15 p.m. Saturday at No. 7/8 Missouri. The game will be broadcast on SEC Network and 102.5 The Game.
