Colton Harberts was a walk-on at the University of South Dakota who came to the Coyotes with a large frame from a small town. He also had a varied athletic background and big feet.  
 
Size 17s do not probably jump out at you if you're hanging out with Coyote offensive linemen, who are all either a little north or a little south of 6-foot-6 and 300 pounds. But what if you're on the Dike-New Hartford High School golf team and you go to a meet and end up playing with a 14-year-old who is 5-4 and weighs 120?
 
"It happened at almost every meet," Harberts said. "I'd be paired with a really small kid. Sometimes right before I'd tee off the kid would ask 'What size feet do you have?' I'd say '17s' and they'd be like 'Holy Cow!'"
 
It's an interesting sidebar to the core story, as far as the Coyotes are concerned. Harberts was sold on the idea of playing at the Missouri Valley Football Conference level even though it was initially not going to include a scholarship. What transpired from there, though not without its trials, has led to Harberts manning the right tackle spot on an offensive line that has put together a pair of impressive efforts in wins over Northern Arizona and Cal Poly for the 2-1 Coyotes, who are opening conference play at Missouri State Saturday.
 
"We worked really hard this past offseason to get to where we are," Harberts said. "Coach (Andy) Prevost is pushing us every day to be the best. We're all holding each other to a high standard."
 
Prevost, the Coyote offensive line coach, loves Harberts the person, and he's become increasingly fond of the player, especially given the work this redshirt freshman has put in to improve.
 
"He's just a really good football player," Prevost said. "He's one of the best tackles in the league now, which is cool because he's still a redshirt freshman that we were able to get to walk on. He's always been able to work hard, but his ability to pay attention has skyrocketed in the last year."
 
Prevost and Harberts are in agreement there was room for progress early on for this MVFC honor roll member. Initially his abilities as a student did not translate directly to his level of concentration on the practice field. 
 
When recruiting a big kid whose best football is ahead of him, Prevost explained, the suspense comes in the player's capacity to embrace the challenges that come with moving from high school to the FCS level. 
 
"Are you able to push yourself past discomfort to get better?'" Prevost said. "For younger guys that can be really hard because they've always been better than everyone else. It's not like they're lazy or anything, it's just that they don't know what they're capable of yet."
 
The other major factor in making the grade is honing an ability to focus, Prevost said. It was where the offensive line coach was initially underwhelmed with his walk-on tackle. 
 
"His true freshman year I bet I yelled the phrase 'Colton, pay attention!' not less than five times a practice," Prevost said. "And sometimes I'd add another adjective or two in there. It drove me bananas."
 
Harberts heard Prevost. Everyday he heard him. He would look at how his teammate, Alex Jensen, who he backed up last spring, approached the same challenges.
 
"He's always doing things right," Harberts said. "I learned a lot from him about how to approach the game mentally."
 
Harberts had come to the realization that he was either going to change or he wasn't going to play.
 
"When I came back after the pandemic, I came back with a different mindset – I was going to stay focused," he said. "Coach Prevost saw something in me and I had to show him that meant something. Then it all started to click for me. Now I'm understanding the whole offense a lot better. Before, though, it was a struggle. I was frustrated at myself a lot of the time."
 
Since then, Harberts, who was also an excellent basketball player at Dike-New Hartford, has converted himself to Mr. Good Example. He helps younger linemen with the stuff he used to struggle with. He'll point out that these things he didn't pay attention to in the old days are actually pretty important in developing as a player. 
 
"I love the kid," Prevost said. "He's always had a big upside in talent. The mental upside is what has made the difference. It's his will to want to be great. He doesn't want to let his teammates down."
 
It's safe to say Harberts represents a very small demographic as both a starting offensive lineman on a Missouri Valley team and a guy who, on his last day of eighth grade, got a hole-in-one on the long par-3 No. 13 at Fox Ridge Golf Course in Dike, Iowa. 
 
His mother was texting him about it being time to come home that day – there was a ceremony to get to – and he better be there. The wind was in his face and there was water on both sides of the green. All sorts of obstacles, in other words.
 
His firmly struck 5-wood drifted to the right over the water, then started to draw back in toward the green. It bounced once and then rolled in. 
 
"Then we all started going crazy," Harberts said. 
 
He continues to play golf recreationally in Vermillion with whoever will come along. His assessments of his teammates' and coaches' level of play are charitable. He mentions fellow offensive lineman Isaac Erbes as unbelievably long off the tee and says Prevost and offensive coordinator Ted Schlafke also have their moments. 
 
As a listener, you sense he's leaving out details about their weaknesses and you're a little disappointed. On the other hand, it probably says something very positive about a young man when he's invited to malign another person's golf game and declines to do it. 
 
"From my first official visit, you could tell it's all about family here," he said. "Everybody cares about each other. Everybody is there for each other. That's just the way it works."