Andrew Mukuba came home to Texas and helped save its season

Texas safety Andrew Mukuba lined up 7 yards off Arizona State receiver Melquan Stovall in overtime of the Longhorns’ College Football Playoff game at the Chick fil-A Peach Bowl. He read the play, accelerated in front of Sam Leavitt‘s pass, intercepted it and sent the Longhorns into hysteria — and the semifinals.

It was a long way to come for the Austin native who returned to Texas after three years at Clemson, becoming a hero in his hometown with a signature play that sealed the Longhorns’ road to Friday’s Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic against Ohio State.

“It feels like this whole thing was scripted for me,” Mukuba said after the game. “Coming home, playing my best ball, helping the team.”

If Mukuba’s trainer, Bernard “Bam” Blake, was actually going to write this movie, he says he already has the first page in his head.

“It would start with a kid who is going without electricity in Zimbabwe, then comes over here searching for a better life and a better opportunity — with an understanding that football is soccer and not what we call football,” Blake said.

That’s not fiction. That’s Mukuba’s story, beginning when he was nine years old, when he, his parents and seven siblings left Zimbabwe for Austin. His mother, Tshala Bilolo, got a job as a hotel housekeeper downtown, right across the street from the UT campus. After the kids started school, Andrew quickly made an impression on the playground.

In P.E., the class wanted to play football, and players lined up to pick teams. Nobody picked the new kid.

“I was like, ‘American football, are you familiar with it? Can you play?'” said Shannon Crenshaw, Mukuba’s fifth-grade P.E. teacher. “He was like, not really, but I will.”

Crenshaw took Mukuba off to the side to explain basic concepts. “Drew’s like 10 years old, and I throw the ball as far as I can,” Crenshaw said. “By the time the ball lands and someone catches it, he just form-tackles the kid.”

He does it again, and Mukuba does it again. Then, Crenshaw wants to see what else he’s got, and explains how to play wide receiver. He tells Mukuba to go long, and again, throws it as far as he can.

“I’m like, there’s no way he’s fixin’ to catch this ball,” Crenshaw said. “It was like Michael Irvin. He caught it. Within five minutes, I’m like, ‘You know what? I need to talk to you, Andrew.'”

Crenshaw and his wife ran a youth football organization, the Austin Steelers, and in Mukuba’s first five minutes on the playground, he got his first recruiting pitch. He became a Steeler.

Crenshaw knew how hard Mukuba’s mom worked. He knew his mom spoke almost solely Swahili. He knew the family was crammed into an apartment across from the school. He told Mukuba that football was going to change his life.

Mukuba’s mother was apprehensive about her son getting into football, but he fell in love with it. She hardly got to see him grow into a star at Austin’s LBJ High School — she worked so much that she only got to go to one of his games. But he became one of the country’s most-recruited defensive backs, with about 40 offers. His senior year, 2020, he couldn’t visit campus, but his brother, Vincent, who’s six years older, was a huge Clemson fan.

Mukuba wanted to stay close to home, but said he wanted to stay out of the tension of the coaching situation at Texas, where he was convinced Tom Herman was going to be fired. Meanwhile, he found a strong bond with then-Clemson defensive coordinator Brent Venables.

So he made a leap and went to Clemson, a place he’d never visited, and became the first player Dabo Swinney signed without meeting in person. Then, he became the first true freshman to start at safety for the Tigers since they started keeping records in 1972, and he became a freshman All-American.

“Anything he’s gone through bad growing up or seen family members go through, he’s allowed that to fuel him and develop him instead of destroy or define him,” Venables said during Mukuba’s first season at Clemson. “How many times he’s said thank you and gone out of his way to say, ‘Thank you, coach … thank you for bringing me. Thank you for believing in me.’ Like who does that when they’re 18 years old? It’s a breath of fresh air.”

The distance was hard. Venables left for Oklahoma. Mukuba suffered injuries in his sophomore and junior seasons, and his production dipped. He felt like he wasn’t as good a fit in Clemson’s new defense and felt he wasn’t progressing. He was right about Herman, who was fired after the 2020 season, and connected with his replacement, Steve Sarkisian. So Mukuba returned to Austin.

This year, he has found his swagger again. His big hits, like one on Georgia quarterback Gunner Stockton in the SEC championship game — a game in which he had 11 tackles and a forced fumble — have made highlights. His interception against Arizona State was his fifth of the season, tied for the SEC lead with teammate Jahdae Barron, the Thorpe Award winner, and South Carolina’s Jalon Kilgore, after having one in 31 starts at Clemson.

“I feel like schematically, [Texas is] a good fit for me, just having the opportunity to play that true safety position,” Mukuba said this week. “I feel like that was my biggest thing, just getting comfortable and playing football the right way. How I feel like I’m playing now reminds me of my high school days where I’m just flying around and having fun.”

Part of his storybook season is fulfilling another dream of coming home and reuniting with fellow Texas defensive backs Barron and Michael Taaffe, friends from the Austin area he’s known for more than a decade. During the 2020 COVID shutdown, the three trained together with Blake for more than 100 straight days at parks or football fields for two hours a day, dreaming of days like Friday, when they could all start together for the Longhorns in a game that meant something.

None of them expected to be at Texas initially. Barron signed with Baylor until Matt Rhule left for the Carolina Panthers job, and he received a release, with Herman’s replacement, Sarkisian, and his new staff making Barron a priority. Taaffe initially committed to Rice before deciding to walk on at Texas. And then Mukuba arrived.

“Now seeing it coming to reality, it’s even crazier,” Mukuba said. “Us doing it this big, with Jahdae winning the Thorpe and playing some of his best football, and Taaffe, an All-American, playing some of his best football. It’s literally everything we’ve talked about.” And now Mukuba is an NFL draft darling.

“Coming into the season, he was seen as a late-round hopeful because of the injuries and inconsistencies,” ESPN draft analyst Jordan Reid said. “Texas is utilizing him in a variety of roles at safety. I’ve been really impressed with how much faster he’s reacted to offensive schemes this year. His ball production is a direct reflection of that. Scouts that I have talked to said he could go as early as the late second or early third round.”

In what could be his final college game, facing all-everything freshman wide receiver Jeremiah Smith and the Buckeyes’ prolific offense, Mukuba will have another chance to show how far he’s come.

“Football is an opportunity for Drew to change the dynamic of his family, and I think he weighs that on his shoulders, not as a pressure, a weight, but as a thing of pride,” Blake said.

Longhorns quarterback Quinn Ewers said Wednesday that one of the bonding experiences of this Texas team has been how they all share their stories and learn about everyone’s backgrounds and the roads they traveled to Austin. He said Mukuba has one of the most inspirational tales.

“I think he’s made a giant impact, not just on the defense, but the whole team,” Ewers said. “That’s been super special for everybody.”

Crenshaw thinks back to the kid on the playground and beams with pride to the road he’s taken.

“He deserves everything that comes to him,” said Crenshaw. “He’s done everything the right way. He hasn’t done it loudly. I’ve seen him grow, and it is just like growing through the concrete. He is here and his story is far from done.”

It’s a movie that would be hard to believe as a work of fiction. But for Texas and Mukuba, it’s real.

“We’ve got a bigger goal to reach,” Mukuba said of the semifinal matchup. “The story is not over.”