Dog at heart: Josiah Deguara of Folsom High waits for a call to join the NFL
Josiah Deguara is a bearded fellow.
He has a shock of thick, black hair on his head to match what is expanding on his chin. He’s a bit more shaggy than normal, in part because there is no one to shear him.
The COVID-19 pandemic has closed down businesses such as barber shops. Deguara rolls with it with good cheer. He is an academic and football product of Folsom High School and the University of Cincinnati, his aim set on the April 23-25 NFL Draft. He is rooted on the foundation of “faith, family and football.”
Can we add another F to the mix?
“If I put on a flannel shirt now,” Deguara said with a laugh, “I’d have the lumberjack look.”
Deguara certainly has the look of an NFL-ready tight end. He is a muscled 6-foot-3 and 245-pounds. He went from a lightly recruited two-star recruit at Folsom to college football stalwart at Cincinnati. He is projected to go anywhere from the third to the seventh round of the draft.
Deguara had 38 catches for 469 yards as a a junior in college and 39 for 504 as a senior for an 11-3 team. Deguara caught 12 touchdown passes his final two seasons and also drove into opponents as a blocker.
He impressed NFL coaches and talent evaluators in the Senior Bowl and the NFL Scouting Combine. Deguara’s 25 reps of 225 pounds on the bench press was the best of the tight ends at the combine, where he also fielded an exhaustive amount of questions from NFL personnel. Two questions that caught his attention came in rapid session. Are you a cat guy or a dog guy? What’s the square root of 81?
He answered that he was a dog guy, and nine.
The dog answer makes sense (and 9 was correct, too). Deguara was a Folsom Bulldog, a key cog for a 16-0 team in 2014 that rates as perhaps the greatest in regional history. He caught 1,671 yards of passes and 24 touchdowns from Jake Browning, now with the Minnesota Vikings.
Deguara’s Cincinnati mascot is Bearcats, but his loyalty is rooted in canines.
“I’m a dog guy all the way,” Deguara said. “I had a dog growing up, a chocolate Lab named Lucky. Got him for my fifth birthday. When I get settled down after the draft, I may get another one.”
Deguara said he also competes with a dog-like mentality, relentless and with bite.
“Like a junkyard dog,” he said with a laugh. “No doubt. When I got to college, I had to add 35 pounds, get stronger, learn how to block. I had to keep that dog mentality, especially being undersized when I first got there. Our coaches said the same thing: play tough and nasty.”
That sounds similar to what Deguara’s high school coaches mandated. Deguara was defined by his class and work ethic, said his Folsom coaches Kris Richardson and Troy Taylor. He went from a 180-pound sophomore to a 190-pound senior, and he kept growing.
“Such a good and humble kid,” said Richardson, now Taylor’s assistant head coach at Sacramento State. “He’s an all-time Folsom great. I know he’ll outwork everyone and make an NFL roster and make coaches happy to have him.”
Richardson said Deguara is easy to root for.
“Josiah has an old soul to him,” the coach said. “He’d talk to adults in serious conversations and then had that goofy side with his friends. And he had this off-the-charts work ethic, and it always starts with that.”
Richardson knew he had a hard worker when Deguara entered high school, but what position would he play? Deguara was versatile during his Folsom youth days — quarterback, receiver, running back, some line. Deguara had two scholarship offers — Air Force and Cincinnati. He was told by recruiters that he wasn’t fast enough to play receiver at that level and wasn’t bulky enough to handle tight end.
“Josiah didn’t fit the mold of one thing — he was just a football player,” Richardson said. “He was a great receiver for us, and by the time he was a senior, we knew he’d be a great tight in in college. We spent a lot of time working blocking and spent a lot of time on the sled. He became one heck of a college tight end, that guy who can catch the ball but all put his hand in the dirt and block. Those guys are gold.”
How about the Deguara beard, coach?
“Oh, it’s there,” Richardson said with a laugh. “He can shave at 8 in the morning and have a full beard by 5 p.m.”
In college, Deguara also proved to be a thinking-man’s player. Said Bearcats offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock on Cincinnati.com in December, “There’s certain guys who really understand route running and really understand defensive coverage. Teams try to cover (Deguara) with different guys in different situations, and he has a knack for understanding how to beat any situation he’s put into.”
Added Cincinnati head coach Luke Fickell, “He’ll go into the next level as a tweener because some people are going to see he’s not 6-foot-5. But the reality is that he’s a ball player. He’s developed the ability to do it all. He’s got a bright future, and not just in this game in a couple weeks, but at the next level.”
In recent workouts while practicing social distancing, Deguara has been catching passes from his former Folsom quarterback Browning and Notre Dame star passer Ian Book, an Oak Ridge graduate. Deguara has also been lifting weights in the family garage. He remains humble.
“It’s how I was raised,” Deguara said. “I try to be that guy, that no matter what happens, you remain humble. I’ve been blessed to have success, and I play with a chip on my shoulder. I had it in college and I’ll take it into the NFL, to show I can do this, to be the best I can be. I pride myself in being the hardest worker.”
Why does it matter so much?
“Football, without it, I don’t know what I’d be doing,” Deguara said. “It starts with my faith in God. My family sacrificed everything to help me get to get here. The idea of being able to give back to them inspires me. Faith, family and football all go together.”
Deguara has already earned a degree and masters in sports management from Cincinnati. He can see himself as a high school athletic director and coach. But not anytime soon. He has more games in him.
Deguara will spend the draft weekend with his parents in their Natomas home. He won’t be glued to the TV.
“There will be a lot of emotions, and I’ll be nervous, excited, anxious, but I won’t stress about it,” he said. “I’ll enjoy the moment and I’ll appreciate all of it.”